OT: Need help with antivirus software, for 25 Pcs. Norton Sucks! Options

[Qarl]

I have 25 pcs at the office.

They are really just acting like dummy terminals as most of the work (about 90%) involves accessing UNIX servers through a terminal emulation program. There is the occasionaly web browsing session, and some minor Microsoft Word or Excel use. Most of the PCs are Celeron 533 or 700 CPUs, running with 128MB ram on Windows XP.

We do not utilize a centralized e-mail server. Our e-mail is hosted by our ISP. So each PC just utilizes a POP email account.

Anyways, we just area allowing our main employees (hourly workers) to utilize e-mail.

I bought and installed Norton 2004 (Corporate Edition) on all of the PCS and it sucks big donkey di@%s!

It basically makes each PC unusably slow, locks up and freezes when you use programs like Adobe Acrobat reader, and basically slows productivity to a crawl. As soon as I disable Norton (turn off autoprotect) everything is fine.

I did a search on the net and seems like Norton 2004 is not the best choice.

Does anyone else have a better recommendation? Here is what I need.

1. I really just need antivirus for the e-mail that integrates with Microsoft Outlook. I already have a firewall in place, and some anti-popup and spyware on each PC.

2. I need something reasonable in price, or that I can buy a multi-license software package.

3. It needs to be from a reputible company that is hear to stay and has constant updates for the latest viruses

4. It can not under the performance of the PC, or it cannot have known problems for interfering with other commonly used office software.

5. I don't need a Mac or a Unix box. I know you guys love your little Apples or open source machines, but a need to stay with PCs please.

Thanks for your assistance.

As always, you guys rock!

[Part Pricer]

avast!

Great product. Basic anti-virus, email protection and very timely updates.

Should run you about $20 per PC per year.

I've been using their products for about three years.

[Part Pricer]

Oh, forgot.

Register as a Home User and download the free version and try it out. (The free version is the same as the Professional version. They are just trusting that businesses don't register as home users)

[Pnambic]

Yeah, the Windows XP box says that it *can* run on 64MB of RAM, but for all intents and purposes, 128 should be the minimum. Running a real-time anti-virus program is going to suck up memory resources quite voraciously whether its Norton or some other program. If it didn't suck up resources, I wouldn't trust the job it was doing. I honestly don't think you'll find much luck trying other programs. You're best bet is probably upping the RAM on those computers to 256MB.

If you're running Celeron processors, you're probably using PC100/133 where 128 MB of Ram would cost about $18 per stick including shipping (according to www.pricewatch.com). If you're using DDR, maybe as cheap as $16 per chip. And a nice side effect is that this upgrade would help all other programs you may be running as well.

[johnlush]

Karl, one other suggestion would be to check with your ISP to see if they offer virus/spam scanning services at the mailserver level. Most of ISPs in my area use Postini. You might check with Symantec about other/better choices since you already bought it from them. My experience with Symantec Antivirus Corporate has been pretty good but, for what ever reason the Auto Protect in NAV kills network performance. You'd think similar products from the same company would behave similarly! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/confused24.gif) Good Luck!

[SirAndy]

Most of the PCs are Celeron 533 or 700 CPUs, running with 128MB ram on Windows XP

yes, go to nortons website and update your corporate edition to work correctly with XP ...

i had the same problem with norton corporate edition on XP boxes, turned out all you need is a small update from norton that'll fix the problem.

runs great now!
altough 128MB RAM is way too little for XP anyways, i would think the system will eat up just that during startup and then everything else runs off virtual memory = SLOW (IMG:style_emoticons/default/barf.gif)

i got 1GB of ram on each box (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)
Andy

[Qarl]

Andy,

I have the latest version 9.0 (or 2004). I could not find any updates for Windows XP. I did search the site and saw some updates and patches for versions 7.6 and earlier with XP.

Some searching on the internet showed others having problems with Norton 2004 and XP causing hangups and freezing of the PC. General concensus is to use something else other than Norton.

I am in the process of getting all PCs to 256 Mb ram.

Hopefully that will help with the speed issue.

Regards,

Karl

[SirAndy]

Andy,
I did search the site and saw some updates and patches for versions 7.6 and earlier with XP.

you're right, i'm running 7.x ...

time to downgrade, i suppose.
(IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) Andy

[campbellcj]

Damn the board is running slooooooooow today (I'm on hotel broadband in St. Louis).

Anyways, I have been using Trend Micro products for several years with great results. This is what I have now which is the bundle for Exchange mail servers as well as the regular Windows servers and desktops.

http://www.trendmicro.com/en/products/suit...te/overview.htm

For non-Exchange users they have a subset product with the same client-side firewall and virus capabilities. The latest versions have email spam filters as well. It used to be called "Officescan Corporate Edition" but name may have changed.

All browser-based administration and totally automated installation, updating, scanning, alerts and reporting (once it is all configured, which does take a bit of time & expertise.)

[campbellcj]

Oh yeah the Trend products do have real-time executable scanning as well as real-time POP3 scanning, which is REALLY important since the majority of worms and viruses are email borne these days. I assume Norton has POP3 scanning as well, but not sure. Hopefully your ISP has some scanning and filtering on their server side...

[anthony]

I've had zero problems with Norton Corporate 8.X on Win2000. We haven't upgraded to 9 yet.

You might also try AVG or AntiVir. They are actually free for home use.

http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_index.php

http://www.freeav.com/

[jim912928]

Well, I'm the CSO at our company and run Symantec Corp addition globally. We are not on release 9 (on 8) and have no problems. One thing that Symantec is top in is getting signature updates out very very fast. Others may have a product, but the threats are for the new stuff that comes out and speed of updates is your best friend. Windows XP must be wheezing on 128mb of memory. However, at home I have 1 laptop that is running XP, Office 2003, Norton 8.x on 128mb of memory and it runs fine (programs launch alittle slow but once they are up they are fine).

I'd push on Symantec for XP patches for version 9x

[Malmz]

You might also try AVG or AntiVir. They are actually free for home use.

All this is just IMHO:

AVG only autoupdates every 14 days (at least the free edition) AntiVir is similar. No good. I have had some problems with a AntiVir install with XP.

Somebody posted that all good virus programs have high overhead. In my opinion, that isn't true. I use Sophos for 60 users at one client and it flies. It's a little tricky to setup to autoupdate (server level or script), but will do it daily or more once setup. I have had ZERO compatability problems with Sophos.

Norton definitely has high overhead. I have also had some big networking PITAs with Norton over the years when you run the SystemWorks suite.

I just installed Computer Associates EZVirus on a bunch of PCs a couple weeks ago. So far, so good. Very low overhead as well. Fry's has it for $29/user.

I was going to use Trend since I have had excellent results with it at home, but found out it is only available from resellers and I didn't have time to deal with that. My only gripe with Trend here is that I check about 10 e-mail accounts whenever I hit send and receive and it flashes their banner each time right in the middle of what you are doing.

Hope this input helps.

sm

[RustyWa]

As Chris said.....Trend

www.antivirus.com

[neo914-6]

On the subject of Norton SystemWorks 2004, how do you reinstall it? Mine worked fine, had problems so I uninstalled it. Now it won't install and I read at their site the modules aren't installed from the CD. Anyone know what I need to do to reinstall it? Don't really want to pay for their live support or a consultant.
PC Unprotected,
Felix

[Malmz]

On the subject of Norton SystemWorks 2004, how do you reinstall it? Mine worked fine, had problems so I uninstalled it. Now it won't install and I read at their site the modules aren't installed from the CD. Anyone know what I need to do to reinstall it? Don't really want to pay for their live support or a consultant.
PC Unprotected,
Felix

Ahhhhh, I have also had similar problems with Norton and McAfee. Not with XP, but I had to hunt down a bunch of entries in the System Registry for both and manually delete them. Try their site do look for something similar for specific instruction (don't know if there are any, but I would think somebody has some instructions out there).

sm

[campbellcj]

Steve, FYI you can now buy (download) Trend stuff online. You can also turn off the banner that flashes up during mail scanning or startup...it's a config option. I thought that was annoying as well.