Norton Internet Security and McAfee on same network?

[grober]

A mate has a problem with his home wireless network. It only has 2 computers on it-his desktop and his son's portable. They both had Norton Internet security 2006 installed previously. Now his son's Norton licence ran out and he has installed a McAfee security package on his portable. My mate now cant get his desktop computer to access the wireless router to connect to the internet. I am guessing that the newly installed McAfee is blocking access to the lan/wireless router but cant be sure. Have any of the forum computer experts come across this problem and is there a workaround?? thanks.

 

[Sp!ke]

My advice would be to uninstall all copies of both McAfee and Norton and use something less troublesome and preferably free.

Since both computers are behind a hardware firewall anyway (NAT), I'd suggest using the standard XP SP2 firewall combined with a virus package like AVG.

These Security Suites by the larger companies are bloatware and unless used very dilligently are more trouble than they are worth.

 

[barneybeardsall]

agreed.... however I would go for a firewall like Zonealarm and anti virus from Avast...

www.avast.com

 

[Sp!ke]

Arghhh

ZoneAlarm... possibly the single most destructive piece of software you can install on a PC.

Any product that continually pops up asking a non technical user whether process ABC should have access is an absolute waste of time. What does the user know?

 

[Brian WH]

Arghhh

ZoneAlarm... possibly the single most destructive piece of software you can install on a PC.

What does the user know?

I agree Zone Alarm is not good.

The answer to the second comment is - If in doubt kick it out.

 

[Sp!ke]

Yeah, but the problem is Zone alarm remembers the user blocking this strange dll and the next time you actually want something to work it doesn't. Over time loads of stuff no longer works.

Then as a last ditch resort you uninstall Zone Alarm and it doesnt uninstall cleanly and then you are completely up the creek and nothing whatsoever works - often requiring a rebuild from scratch.

There is no other software that I have ever come across that is this much of a PITA.

In fact, now if I catch a trace of zone alarm ever being on a pc that has problems, I do my damndest to wriggleout of getting involved in fixing it.

Just try putting "cannot uninstall Zonealarm" into google... 187,000 hits.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?source=ig&hl=en&q=cannot+uninstall+zonealarm&meta=

 

[Dieselman]

Never had a problem with ZA and I run the full suite.
As far as blocking messages, it will only 'remember this setting' if you select it. I just leave it so every case is treated individually.

 

[Flasheart]

Got to agree - I have had no problems with applications not working or any of the other hystrionics that Spike seems to have with ZA.

The standard XP firewall really isn't up to much

 

[Sp!ke]

Let me clarify... I don't have problems with Zone Alarm... I have problems with other peoples Zone Alarm installations.

 

[DieselE]

Yeah, but the problem is Zone alarm remembers the user blocking this strange dll and the next time you actually want something to work it doesn't. Over time loads of stuff no longer works.

Then as a last ditch resort you uninstall Zone Alarm and it doesnt uninstall cleanly and then you are completely up the creek and nothing whatsoever works - often requiring a rebuild from scratch.

There is no other software that I have ever come across that is this much of a PITA.

In fact, now if I catch a trace of zone alarm ever being on a pc that has problems, I do my damndest to wriggleout of getting involved in fixing it.

Just try putting "cannot uninstall Zonealarm" into google... 187,000 hits.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?source=ig&hl=en&q=cannot+uninstall+zonealarm&meta=

I used to be a great fan of Zonealarm and had the Pro version installed. Then it told me that an upgrade was available and did I want to install it. No problem, done this many times. BUT not this time. Half way through installing the upgrade it told me that it could find Vector something or other and hung the computer. After several restarts where the computer hung still looking for this missing bit, I had to resort to a Safe Mode start and uninstall Zonealarm to regain control of my computer.

Spike, I'm now firmly on your side of the fence.

 

[recycled]

A mate has a problem with his home wireless network. It only has 2 computers on it-his desktop and his son's portable. They both had Norton Internet security 2006 installed previously. Now his son's Norton licence ran out and he has installed a McAfee security package on his portable. My mate now cant get his desktop computer to access the wireless router to connect to the internet. I am guessing that the newly installed McAfee is blocking access to the lan/wireless router but cant be sure. Have any of the forum computer experts come across this problem and is there a workaround?? thanks.

perfect way to lock a computer is to have two anti virus running.
uninstall all of norton and mcafee. Reinstall mcafee .
I am still not clear on the setup. If your mate has mcafee on his desktop, i dont see a problem. The firewall only prevents your mate from seeing the portable but he should still see the router.
I dual boot between two operating systems on a single desktop and i have both norton and Mcafee albeit on different operating systems.
You can easily enable mac adress filtering on the router to let your computers connect to each other.
if you can give a clearer set up, like is there a primary link between his PC and the router or are both computers wireless enabled?

 

[grober]

Both computers are wireless enabled. The problem has apparently arisen since his son installed McAfee on his portable. The plot thickens however because after a bit of fiddling by my neighbour both computers are now failing to make a wireless link to the router! I have a sneaking suspicion that my neighbours son may have inadvertently logged on to the net via an unsecured neighbour' s wireless link and that my mates wireless router is not working at all, but dont know if thats possible or not?? More investigations and some router/networking software reloads required I fear before the problem is solved. thanks to everyone for the replies so far.

 

[Flasheart]

I used to be a great fan of Zonealarm and had the Pro version installed. Then it told me that an upgrade was available and did I want to install it. No problem, done this many times. BUT not this time. Half way through installing the upgrade it told me that it could find Vector something or other and hung the computer. After several restarts where the computer hung still looking for this missing bit, I had to resort to a Safe Mode start and uninstall Zonealarm to regain control of my computer.

Spike, I'm now firmly on your side of the fence.

A bad installer does not make a bit of software bad. I have seen a number of posts about Photoshop CS3 proving difficult to install for some windows users.... that does not make CS3 a bad app just makes it a poorly packaged one for installing.

 

[masqueraid]

I used to be a great fan of Zonealarm and had the Pro version installed. Then it told me that an upgrade was available and did I want to install it.

This is the new version 7 - it's awful & CheckPoint (ZoneLabs new owners) have admitted as much (Including the c0ck-up with it not uninstalling the VSMon driver). Go back to the earlier version (6.5.714) and set the update checker to remind you in 60 days before giving up!

 

[DieselE]

This is the new version 7 - it's awful & CheckPoint (ZoneLabs new owners) have admitted as much (Including the c0ck-up with it not uninstalling the VSMon driver). Go back to the earlier version (6.5.714) and set the update checker to remind you in 60 days before giving up!

I tried going back to an earlier version and still had the same problem. At that point patience ran out. My anti-virus software is Kaspersky so I purchased their Internet Suite. So far so good (but then I said that about Zonealarm until version 7 ).