Norton Pop-Ups

October 1, 2004 2:49 PM

Every day, Norton Antivirus pops up with an "Expired Subscription" message, asking me to "renew now" or "renew later". My only options for renewing later are one or fifteen days. How about never? How do I get this damn thing to not pop up anymore?
posted by jdroth to Computers & Internet (13 answers total)

Best answer: Try changing your computer's date to the year 2039. Then, when you choose 2 weeks, it'll be two weeks from then. Then change your date back.
posted by dobbs at 3:27 PM on October 1, 2004

uninstall it?
(the free akg anti-virus program is pretty good, in my experience).
posted by andrew cooke at 3:47 PM on October 1, 2004

I think Andrew meant AVG from Grisoft. I've used it for years and it's been very reliable.
posted by Monk at 3:53 PM on October 1, 2004

yeah, sorry.
the interface is cheesy, but it seems to work. my ex-employers switched to it after getting hit with something that norton missed.
posted by andrew cooke at 3:57 PM on October 1, 2004

Response by poster: Dobbs, will that really work? If so: genius!
posted by jdroth at 4:21 PM on October 1, 2004

Why would you want to keep NAV installed if you don't have a subscription? Without the subscription, you won't have the latest virus definitions and so won't be fully protected.
posted by mcguirk at 4:34 PM on October 1, 2004

mcguirk, if you have time on your hands, you can usually download the updates manually.

The companies like to move them around so that you can't build an automated script to do the work for you, though...

/me gets his McAfee rant on.
posted by shepd at 5:16 PM on October 1, 2004

Uninstall it. Unless you plan on pirating it, there's no point in keeping it. It will just keep bugging you. (I speak as an employee of a Symantec contract company.)
posted by MrAnonymous at 5:57 PM on October 1, 2004

MrAnonymous, I wasn't aware that using the software after the autoupdate period was considered pirating!

Thank God I live in Canada where when you sell store boxed software, unless you get me to physically sign rights away, it's tough to suggest I can't legally use my software after some duedate. Of course, you can stop supporting it whever you see fit.

I will assume, though, that you're referring to tricking the software into another update cycle, not that downloading manual updates isn't legal. :)

Which, for the hell of it, I'll explain here. Note: Only good for NAV 2003 and below. 2004 introduced that horrible activation key thing. To reduce complaints in my store, I stopped selling NAV 2004 because of that. Dealing with windows activation is already more than enough.

- Format HDD
- Re-install windows
- Enjoy :-)
posted by shepd at 6:16 PM on October 1, 2004

jdroth, it works for getting rid of the Quicktime nag screen on a Mac.
posted by dobbs at 8:29 PM on October 1, 2004

Sweet babies on fire riding armadillos!! Thank you!

I've put up with this for like 8 months. Except I've got SystemWorks w/ the blasted antivirus. I'll try this.

And it also pops up like 50 times a day it seems. If I walk away from my computer for more than 30-60 minutes it pops up. It seems to pop up in even less time during active use, perhaps when the AV component is triggered like it would normally in web, network and email scanning.

Yeah, I need to reinstall. I also noticed the sky was blue this morning. :) I'm lazy, windoze still works, I need components I don't have sources for, ad nauseum.

And thankfully I have one of those obnoxious smart office keyboards with a dedicated "close window" button.
posted by loquacious at 12:00 AM on October 2, 2004

Nice business model - if you don't pay up, we'll irritate you till you do. :)

I used avast anti-virus for a bit, but didn't like it. I now use AVG like dobbs, which does a fine job and is free to boot. I set it to update automatically every Saturday at 6 AM and I'm done.
posted by madman at 4:31 AM on October 2, 2004

madman, you're confusing me with someone else. I have the ultimate anti-virus solution: I use a Mac.
posted by dobbs at 11:47 AM on October 2, 2004