Norton Utilities : Java Glossary

by Roedy Green ©1996-2008 Canadian Mind Products
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Norton Utilities

A collection of Symantec’s utilities bundled in various ways. The 2001 edition is a common install that works on W95/W98/Me/NT/W2K/XP. There is a similar suite for the Mac. The Norton Utilities have evolved over the years to become more and more automatic. However the quality has gradually deteriorated. Installs often fail. At the same time, the old hacker utilities that would be dangerous in novice hands, like disk edit, have been dropped. I have been using these utilities since the early days of DOS. The following table outlines the most important components and which components come bundled with which packages.

Component	Purpose	Available Separately?	Included in SystemWorks 2005?	Included in SystemWorks 2005 Premier?
Anti Virus	Detecting and removing viruses.
Clean Sweep	Removing junk files and duplicate DLLs.
Disk Doctor	Repairing damaged disks.
Ghost	Backing up partitions to CD ROM.
PCAnywhere 12	Remotely control another computer.
Speed Disk	Defragger to tidy disk for speed.
System Doctor	Repairing damaged system registry.
System Information	Glean detailed information about installed hardware and software.
Winfax Basic	Sending and receiving Faxes.
Winfax Pro	Sending and receiving Faxes.

The Horror

SpeedDisk is in good shape, but SystemWorks, the Virus checker and the Norton Utilities Integrator all fail to launch. Symantec sent me some shortcuts to bypass the usual menu launches. There is no sign of the promised Registry Editor under NT even though I selected a full install. It is only available for Windows 95/98/ME. The background virus checker goes into a loop if you try to delete a file containing a virus. Norton Ghost can’t see an ordinary IDE drive. In a Win98 machine with tight memory hundreds of bugs surface. It deleted Office 2000 as if it were a virus in Windows 2000. The user interface is better than ever, but this puppy needs some more beta test time before letting it loose on the general public. It is a good thing LiveUpdate does work. Norton may eventually fix these problems and automatically apply the patches. I have reinstalled the utilities from scratch half a dozen times. Different things go wrong each time. On the most recent reinstall it insisted on being installed on C: even though I have two perfectly good other partitions that all other installers see. It is like a broken down old car. I am using NT. I have had similar problems using it with other people’s copies under Windows 98 and Windows 2000.

This is frustrating. I would go back to the previous version, but I can’t. The reason I bought Norton SystemWorks 2001 Pro was to replace my missing master CD for the previous version. I have not upgraded to 2005 Premier.

Read the scathing reviews at Amazon.com.

CNET Catch-up

Under Symantec Web ⇒ Web Services is an interesting feature called CNET Catch-up, which informs you of any software you have installed, including non-Symantec software, which is out of date, and for which an update is available. It has a huge database of programs including obscure operating system pieces, drivers and applications. It tells you the prices of upgrades that are not free as well.

Firewall

There is also an independent trio of products, Personal Firewall, Internet Security and Internet Security Family edition for setting up a firewall, blocking ads and blocking children from viewing material their parents find offensive. These are outgrowths of the Atguard firewall and are well regarded.

defragger
firewall

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