Hello,
My friend bought a new computer a few months ago that came with Vista installed. It also came with a bunch of other programs (bloatware) installed. I uninstalled all the stuff she didn't want, which included Norton AV, and replaced that particular program with AntiVir, which I have used and liked for years.
She doesn't use the computer for much except playing pre-installed card games and reading email, and she didn't install anything except her Kodak printer. I installed the Comodo firewall, but that didn't work well for her, so when Zone Alarm released a Vista-compatible version, I uninstalled Comodo and installed ZA.
She began telling me the computer was freezing up from time to time. Then it began freezing up regularly. Now it is freezing up so badly that she can't even play her games.
I reviewed the event log and found errors involving Windows Error Reporting service, and warnings about the printer. I turned off the error reporting and unplugged the printer. The problem persisted.
I'm not a Vista user myself (XP), so don't know exactly how I found this, but I *think* AntiVir popped up a bubble that said it was out of date. I clicked on it, and Vista said there were *multiple* AV programs that were out of date! So I clicked on show me what's installed (or whatever the link was called). That dang Norton still showed up as being installed, even after I uninstalled it! I double checked just in case I had a brain fart, and it is definitely gone from the programs list.
So I shut down AntiVir so as to not have the two conflicting with each other while I was working. Then I searched the registry to see what came up for Norton (a lot, of course). The computer froze while I was in mid-export of a registry backup prior to making changes.
At this point, because we were having to reboot practically every few keystrokes, I decided to ask for help. When I first found the multiple AV installations I thought "! I've found the problem!" But after it froze with no "installed" AV program actively running, I'm not so sure any more.
So where do I go from here?
My friend bought a new computer a few months ago that came with Vista installed. It also came with a bunch of other programs (bloatware) installed. I uninstalled all the stuff she didn't want, which included Norton AV, and replaced that particular program with AntiVir, which I have used and liked for years.
She doesn't use the computer for much except playing pre-installed card games and reading email, and she didn't install anything except her Kodak printer. I installed the Comodo firewall, but that didn't work well for her, so when Zone Alarm released a Vista-compatible version, I uninstalled Comodo and installed ZA.
She began telling me the computer was freezing up from time to time. Then it began freezing up regularly. Now it is freezing up so badly that she can't even play her games.
I reviewed the event log and found errors involving Windows Error Reporting service, and warnings about the printer. I turned off the error reporting and unplugged the printer. The problem persisted.
I'm not a Vista user myself (XP), so don't know exactly how I found this, but I *think* AntiVir popped up a bubble that said it was out of date. I clicked on it, and Vista said there were *multiple* AV programs that were out of date! So I clicked on show me what's installed (or whatever the link was called). That dang Norton still showed up as being installed, even after I uninstalled it! I double checked just in case I had a brain fart, and it is definitely gone from the programs list.
So I shut down AntiVir so as to not have the two conflicting with each other while I was working. Then I searched the registry to see what came up for Norton (a lot, of course). The computer froze while I was in mid-export of a registry backup prior to making changes.
At this point, because we were having to reboot practically every few keystrokes, I decided to ask for help. When I first found the multiple AV installations I thought "! I've found the problem!" But after it froze with no "installed" AV program actively running, I'm not so sure any more.
So where do I go from here?
Ted