crush her

I'm at the end of my tether here!

Just got NIS 2005 (cd update from 2004)
First installation it froze on me, forcing a reboot, finally managed to get the internet security part working and anti spam but no anti virus, it just wont install at all.

When I try to uninstall it displays error messages, then uninstalls something. When I reinstall, it doesnt reach the end of the task bar (but tells me it has finished),the cd drive keeps going and then gives me an error message saying the same thing.

The symantec web site has been knackered all evening too. As far as I can gather everything else works fine......... I'm close to Insania !

Would anyone have any helpful ideas? Many thanks

messiah

A bit extreme but after my experiences with the NIS stuff I'd go the fdisk route...

What are the specs of your 'pooter? I'm running a 2.8Ghz P4 with 512mb RAM at work and NIS crippled it - runs something like 8 programs in the background, personally I've found a virus to be less annoying...

Stueyb

I can second that. It came free with my tosh laptop and it is just one screwup after another with it.

andrewdelvard

Amazing to read the above. Works flawlessly on my 'puter.

BlkKnight

Enable windows (free) firewall.

Download AVG (free) antivirus

Jobbed

Iain Young

Erm, windows firewall is naff, and avg isn't much better. I've seen both of them let through both net attacks and viruses...

p.s. NIS 2005 has worked flawlessly on the machines I've tried it on, but it does seem to have problems with some machine (I think it depends on what you have installed and the general state of your registry etc).

Chris L

Agreed - Windows firewall isn't really good enough - better than nothing, but not great. It doesn't track outgoing connections for starters. You'd be better off using Sygate or Zone Alarm - both free for personal use.

AVG is a bit clunky - again better than nothing. I would try Avast as an alternative. This is also free and seems to work OK.

BlkKnight

Probabily the most effective way of preventing infections would be to:

1. switch to Firefox

2. www.windowsupdate.com

3. install AV software (doesn't really matter which) and KEEP IT UP TO DATE

4. educate users

I've personally been running XP for 3 years with spohos a/v and WITHOUT a firewall my e-mails get scanned on the pop server & I avoid any dubious files & click throughs.

Milamber

iTrader: (2)

Should you really have said that on a bbs?

Personally, zonealarm informs me that attempts have been made to access my pc regularly (20 per hour)

BlkKnight

Attempts are exactly that. It's simply an automated probe (one of thousands) to see if your machine is vulnerable to an attack.

As long as you are patched (windows & AV) and aren't running any dubious software (listening services, file & print sharing, DCOM, Netbios) over your internet facing connection, there isn't any real reason for you to be a victim of an automated attack.


Now a malicious attack is something different. But I think it's extremely unlikely that you (or me) as an individual would be a target of such an attack.


Should anyone be hellbent on breaking your computer, chances are that firewalls & A/V software won't help you anyway - this is what backups are for!


I'm quite confident about running without a firewall, and I doubt i'll change.

crush her

Mines a real old relic of a thing, which I think could be one of the main problems. Well I suppose the only thing that isnt working is the anti virus which I could load from elsewhere. Thanks for the replies!

Chris L

Fair enough as far as it goes, but AV software and patching doesn't close ports or warn you if someone has got in. When you can get a perfectly good firewall (ie Sygate) which is free and takes very little resource why take the risk? How do you know that all outbound connections are legitimate? The average time for a completely unprotected PC to be infected once connected to the Internet is 4 mins and falling....

p@ul

F secure is a very good av and very easy to use
Im running internet security 2005 now my years contract is up on f secure and its not nearly as user friendly

messiah

Norton Anti Virus isn't that bad - it's the Internet Security Suite that's the crippler - unfortunately I could find no way of installing the AV without the rest of it...

Milamber

iTrader: (2)

Good point, well made.