I’m doing two weeks of work for my ex-boss, and I’ve run into a computer problem that I just cannot seem to find the answer to.
Last summer he bought a Dell Dimension 2400 running Windows 2003. It came equipped with the Symantec/Norton virus protection package installed. I transferred his active files over from his old computer. But we’ve run into the following:
[ol][li]Whenever he receives e-mail with a MS Word or Excel attachment, Outlook Express suppresses the attachment as potentially containing a virus – no option, just blocking the download of the attachment. And many such files are from people we’re confident are not sending viruses, even inadvertently.[/li]
[li]Every time we open a file on his hard drive which I transferred to this machine from his old computer, the computer takes an inordinate length of time doing a virus scan on it.[/li]
[li]Symantec’s website is pretty opaque on how to resolve these problems. If there is an answer in their FAQs and online knowledge base, it’s extremely well buried and not responsive to a search. I do have the option of paying $29.95 and up for a telephone call to a tech. support person, which they’ll waive if they judge it’s their fault. But while they don’t seem to have placed the answers to my questions in their online information, there is also no obvious way to contact tech. support by e-mail to actually ask them.[/ol][/li]
If anyone else has run into these problems, or has knowledge of how to actually pry an answer to a specific question out of Symantec, I’d greatly appreciate some help.
Polycarp,
I know this isn’t what you’re looking for, but if I were to do serious research on this issue I’d want to know the EXACT name, version number, service pack (if applicable) and release date (if applicable) of the Symantec/Norton software you’re looking at.
I’d research it, but I’m only goofing off for a few minutes while studying for my next CS test.
OE often decides to block attachments, so for your first problem I would check under tools, options, security tab, make sure it is not checked for block all files potentially containing a virus…
That doesn’t help your second problem though, sorry…
OE can be configured to suppress certain attachments – it goes by file extension. Your corporate e-mail system may also be set up to suppress certain file attachments. EXE and BAT files are almost always suppressed, and some other extensions can be suppressed as well. I don’t know why DOC would be suppressed because Word macro viruses are relatively uncommon (compared to malicious EXE files). You may be able to get around this by turning off the DOC extension in OE, or by asking people to send you zipped Word documents. This is annoying, though. I used to have to send people BAT and EXE files fairly often, and the network would suppress them, so I had to send zip files. Not everyone knew what to do with a zip file, though…
Regarding the virus scan, probably the best thing to do is wait for it to complete. I know that can take a very long time, particularly if the file is compressed. If it’s really a problem, you can temporarily disable Norton Auto-Protect by right-clicking its system tray icon and selecting ‘disable’. If you do this, be sure to turn it back on when you’re done, and be sure to scan the hard drive for viruses regularly. You can also turn off virus scanning for compressed files in the NAV configuration, but again this puts you at increased risk. If file access in general is very slow, you may want to defrag the hard drive. If this is a company computer you probably have access to Diskeeper or maybe Norton Speed Disk; otherwise you can use the built-in defrag utility.
Norton has a $69.95 per incident tech support fee. Or did as of maybe 6 months ago.
I recommend, if you are going to buy help, go for that one.
Then they are bound to solve your problem, no matter how long it takes, as opposed to charge by the hour.
When I got a bad virus, it was worth the $69.95 to have a tech assist for several hours to get rid of it. I could have complained that the customer web site had incomplete info (which it did), but I was pleased at the very competent help I got and they added the additional info and details to their customer web site within a few minutes of resolving my issue.
Of course, it was my company’s money, and every hour I was unable to use the computer was more than 69.95 in lost billable time.
Your problem is probably OE. I use xp and Norton 2004. It efficiently scans files quickly. Most of my problems I ever had with sy was solved by googling my questions.