Every time I use anything fron Norton I have tons of problems, and have to format and reinstall just to get rid of it (deleting dosn`t seem to get it all). Would a firewall alone keep viruses out, or do you really need anti-virus. I`ve never had either and have never had a problem but my wife uses her computer for her business and dosn~t want to take any chances, so I was wondering if anyone knows of anything thats good and "friendly". Thanks in advance, And Happy Days.

I installed AVG when Norton was cusing me problem with XP and I really like it.It has all the features Norton does and its FREE!! Grab a copy yourself from here>> http://www.grisoft.com/html/us_index.htm P.S. a firewall alone is not enough IMHO.Everyone should install,use,and update regularly, a AV program of some sort. Jimi_l

First, a firewall will not keep out viruses, but should keep out people trying to plant things on your computer or to hack you. Tiny Personal Firewall or Zone Alarm are good ones. Second, Norton AV, Utilities and System works are fine if you set them up to suit ME. Other similar suites also cause similar problems on PCs as you will see from the questions on this group about McAfee etc. Look at response 2 on this post http://www.computing.net/windowsme/wwwboard/forum/17358.html Just for your information, I use Norton products a lot and I have always found it necessary to completely uninstall prior to a reinstall or a new install of Norton anything. That means using add/remove, then rebooting, then searching the hard drive for any mentions of Norton or Symantec and removing those folders, then searching the registry for same and removing those keys. Only then do I reinstall anything from Norton. And, while using LiveUpdate to bring Systemworks up to date again, I always disable the anti-virus programs in ctrl-alt-del before running Live Update. I have often found it necessary also to download only one update at a time, even to the point of expanding the + sign beside the update listed for a particular application and downloading only one of the sub-updates. It can also be necessary to reboot between each download of the sub-updates and to remember to deactivate anti-virus each time. It takes quite a while but it works and you then get a good install. If, after you download one update, you get a message which says "you chose not to install the 1 update available" ignore it because it is usually wrong. This is also often true for McAfee and other deeply embedded anti-virus programs. There is also an interesting post on Norton here http://www.computing.net/windowsme/wwwboard/forum/17247.html

Jimi - I'm interested in your post on AVG - do they give regular free updates on virus definitions or is it a subscription service? And, have you any idea on how they rate on catching viruses? Symantec usually score top in the reviews I have seen. But the sound of free is nice. :)

AVG updates regularly and they are all free.Also AVG scans E-mail attachments in AND outgoing and does everything else Norton can.They pulled a %100 viri "caught" rating by an independant test 3 yrs running. Give it a try, you have nothing to lose!! Jimi_l

Every time I use anything fron Norton I have tons of problems, and have to format and reinstall just to get rid of it (deleting dosn`t seem to get it all). You should never just delete an applications root folder. Always use the uninstall feature. Would a firewall alone keep viruses out, or do you really need anti-virus. You should have antivirus software whether you use a firewall or not. What version of norton antivirus software do you have? If you have 2000 thats your problem you will need 2001 or better for windows me.

I have 2001, the other day I updated at the norton site, then turned it off with msconfig cause I did`t want it running all the time. The next time I turned on my machine, it stopped with "Can`t find Norton Auto Run press any key to continue" And pressing any key dosn`t work, either does Ctrl-alt-delete, so its go into safe mode and turn it all back on. I thought I could use it when I wanted to , silly me. I put it on my machine first to see if i`d have any problems. Suprise suprise. I just want somthing that, if I suspect somthing, turn it on, check it out, turn it off, on my merry way.............