as a newbie could use some help. my system restore does not restore. when i try to restore to previous setting it appears to go through the motions and then says it cannot restore. i have set new restore dates but it still does not restore. read somewhere system restore is a useless space demanding utility correct? mine has never worked and despite a recent crisis requiring the removal of trojan virus i managed well without use of system restore. surely that was the time if it was of any use that i needed it?
after reading previous threads i have decided to remove norton which is due for renewal anyway, but am wary as i have no system restore and i have never uninstalled such a major programme. system operating is xp pro
xp pro, xp home, both are the same just pro comes with more utilities. well system restore is not a waste as long as you have a drive for it or a partitioned part of your drive for it. if its a new computer it will have a spot for it. if its older it may not. or it may not be on, being it can't restore then. norton smorten, norton ain't nothing but a resourse hog, try zone alarm for a firewall and avg by grisoft av etc. it will be all in the helpful utilities thread up top, but to remove it you can use the program removal utility. system restore for one thing doesn't rid you of viruses etc. it may reset the effects of it but not rid you of it, its a great thing to do that when desperate or if you did delete a program by mistake, but if you need norton back at any time you can get it from their site at symantec and a free one month trial i beleive
I don't think you can remove System Restore. It's just built into Windows.
As for removing programs, go to the Control Panel and there will be an icon for "Add/Remove Programs". You want that.
Removing Norton should give you no problems and there is no need to be wary of it. Just go to the add/remove utility mentioned above, find Norton in the list and hit remove. As for the reason System Restore isn't working, I'm thinking it could be that some piece of software on your PC is accessing something System Restore needs, locking it. Have you run a spyware removal tool like Ad-Aware or Spybot: S&D recently? If not, get a couple! See the link below for some links to a few.
You don't say what Norton product, but if its the A/V then I would go to symantec.com and search for RNAV. This is a Norton removal tool that will do a more complete job then Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel.
As for System Restore. I'ver used it and it works fine. But you have to understand what it does. All it does is take a snapshot of certain system settings and stores that on your hard drive. it doesn't do a full backup of your system. If you want that I would suggest using Norton Ghost or something similar.
Please don't stay on the net, or open any emails without an Antivirus Program running in the background. If you get a virus, you might possibly have to take it to a computer repair store to get it running again.
As far as Spyware, I noticed you have many good programs. Here is a suggestion for one that is free, and stops anything from getting into your computer, without having to scan:
Just for information:
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thanks to all for your help. i've now succesfully removed nortonAV 2004. Everything is so much faster now. Appreciate the advise re antivirus and am in the process of downloading avast! thanks again.
see, norton= system hog. free av's can be better and most are not sytem hogs. glad you got it off with ease. oh and i didn't say remove system restore did i atleast i don't think so.