Just yesterday I started having problems with the Norton antivirus 2004 auto-protect being disabled on startup. When it first happened the program said to restart my computer, but that didn't help. I was able to go into the program and tell it to enable auto protect. It works just fine after that. But every time I restart my computer I have to repeat this step. So I have no auto protection during startup except for my ZoneAlarm Pro firewall. I did a live update as soon as I got the Auto Protect working. I am suppose to get them automatically, but I think something is not configured correctly with my ZoneAlarm Pro firewall and when I turn off the mobile code, then I can download the new definitions then Symantec does it's updates on Wednesdays (yesterday) Could they have messed up something here? Or could it be caused from something else? Also, just a note in case some new virus or whatever might be going around or my computer has a major issue somewhere. Yesterday when I booted up my computer everything was fine. Then after I got on the internet and had been surfing the net for a while, I had gotten disconnected from the internet. My DSL modem showed no earthnet traffic nor DSL traffic. I had to disconnect the power from the wall to reset it. Well this did the trick. But this is when Norton's Auto Protect first started being disabled. Then later in the day when I restarted my computer again, the DSL modem and the Auto Protect disconnection happened to me again. This morning it is continuing to do the same thing. Once I reset everything manually I have no problems. Could this problem with my modem have any relation with my antivirus auto protect being disabled? I have and used and updated Ad-Aware, Spybot S&D, SpywareBlaster, Microsoft AntiSpyware, ZoneAlarm anti-spyware, Norton's Anti-Virus 2004 Does anyone have an answers for me? I'm not ignorant, I just need more learning!

Tammy1949: that behavior with Norton Auto Protect is indicative of the W32.Sober.X@mm worm. I had the same situation on a Win98SE system. Go to Symantec's site at this URL: http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.sober.x@mm.html#technicaldetails and see if it fits.

I have looked at the W32.Sober.X@mm worm at Symantec site that you gave, but nothing is in my regedit that is listed here. Some of the things in that post for the W32.Sober.X@mm worm I didn't understand. I did a search on csrss.exe, Services.exe, and smss.exe and they are only listed in my c:\WINDOWS\system32 folder and also the SMSS.exe is located in C:\WINDOWS\I386\SYSTEM32. I am guessing this last one is OK, I hope. Another thing I remember now that I didn't mention before, but I don't know if it means anything, is I had opened up the task manager and I saw NProtect in there. I can't remember it being in there before and I haven't seen it in there since. Is this normal? I'm not ignorant, I just need more learning!

Tammy1949: Did you download and run the removal tool that is available from the link on the Symantec page? You should try that just to make sure, it can do no harm and if the Sober worm is not there it will tell you so.

NAV Autoprotect will sometimes do this (not load). Re-installing always seems to clear it up. 98% of the population is asleep. The other 2% are staring around in complete amazement, abject terror, or both.

I will download the removal tool right now and see what happens. As far as reinstalling Norton's Antivirus, I am not sure if I want to. It is going to expire in about a month. I have the ZoneAlarm Pro Security Suite but I have only been using the Norton's 2004 Antivirus cause I didn't know how to uninstall the trial version and didn't have the time to figure it out, so I went ahead and paid for the 2004 program. I have been thinking about just using the ZoneAlarm Anti-Virus protection. It is already paid for. If someone could explain to me how to uninstall Norton's Anti-Virus 2004 program, then I would uninstall it completely. Any volunteers out there? Thanks I'm not ignorant, I just need more learning!

Tammy to uninstall Norton AV do a search on Symantec's site for "uninstall NAV 2004" and follow the instructions they provide. Norton is cranky to uninstall as it works it's way deep into your system. You may have to do a "manual uninstall" even after you follow the regular uninstall instructions from Symantec. Good luck.