Norton’s Windows 7 beta – security update

Norton Internet Security has been my main PC protection in recent years. I've a few minor criticisms, but for the most part it has done a good job guarding my desktop, laptop and my wife's laptop. The computers run Windows XP and Vista.

One problem worth mentioning is PC performance drops a few percent while the program is running – which is all the time. A small performance hit really doesn't matter when I'm surfing the web or using Microsoft Word. It is noticeable when there's heavy-duty video, audio or Photoshop processing.

Earlier this year I switched from Microsoft Windows Vista to Windows 7 RC. The new operating system performs better than Vista on my machine. It appears stable enough to for everyday use. It is everything Windows Vista was not, but it doesn’t work with some popular anti-virus packages.

Beta problems with Norton

My copy of Symantec Norton Internet Security didn’t work with Windows 7. So I tried a beta version of an updated version for the new operation system.

I promptly ran into major problems with the beta version of Symantec Norton Internet Security 2010. There are great features, but the performance overhead is huge.

It’s also flaky around the edges. Of course, the software is beta and Symantec made no promises about performance. But the system crashed two or three times a day.

There were also installation problems. Sadly this isn’t a one-off pain, the software repeatedly timed out. Each time this happens you need to download and install a new version. In fact there were times – many times when the older version timed out before a new build was ready and the PC was left vulnerable for days at a time.

The beta appears to be the only version of Norton Internet Security that runs properly on Windows 7, so I needed to find an alternative security package. For details read the next story:
Alternatives to Norton Internet Security