Can Norton Anti Virus license be migrated ?

August 8, 2005 3:56 PM

Is there a way to move Norton anti virus license from a trashed machine to a new machine or re-activate it on a rebuilt machine ? More than a few times I have been in a situation where I had to reinstall Win2k or rebuild the whole machine or replace a crappy machine with a newly built one. Does Norton AV allow license migration in such situations? I think their activation process normally does not like that if I remember right. Please correct me if I am wrong. Also any opinion on free edition of AVG anti-virus software from GriSoft ?
posted by flyby22 to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

Also any opinion on free edition of AVG anti-virus software from GriSoft ?

Annoying, but not as annoying as Norton.
posted by grouse at 4:04 PM on August 8, 2005

I just had to do this yesterday on a client's machine. All that you need is the activation code that was sent to you via e-mail when you purchased Norton or purchased your virus update subscription.

Once you have that number, just reinstall Norton on your new screen. Then, run Live Update. When it says that you need to purchase a subscription, click on "I have an activation code" and enter your code. That's it!
posted by richardhay at 4:20 PM on August 8, 2005

I can't answer the Norton question, but I think AVG is great. Avast is pretty good too.

Uses lots of CPU on my machine when it does a full test though, can't do much of anything when it's running. (So of course I've set it to start in the evening right when I'm mostly likely to be playing a game, durrr.)
posted by The Monkey at 4:59 PM on August 8, 2005

I've had the same experience as richardhay, though only a couple of times. I really don't like Norton, and don't mess with it unless I have to (i.e. I'm being paid to). AVG is teh b0mb. Free, easy setup, good scheduling, and it finds viruses when you just open a folder they're hiding in. Heck, it finds viruses when other programs merely access the folder they're hiding in! Let's see NAV do that! And it doesn't:

-stop every time it finds something during a scan and ask if I want to clean it, quarantine it, heal it, delete it, julienne it, fry it, etc...and then be unable to anything anyway (when it turns out I can just go manually delete it, so what was the big problem?)

-interrupt me while trying to update, informing me that I need to update

-connect to the update server (a three-minute process), download a list of updates, download updates for 70 bajillion different components, install all but one, then "fail" and undo everything because the Live Update updater or some crap didn't update-

okay, that's enough. But I really don't like Norton.
posted by attercoppe at 6:08 PM on August 8, 2005

ok i am going to try what richardhay said. i pay enough to norton for all my machines and it makes me sick to think that i need to pay again if i rebuild a machine. Yeah I also want to try something else for a change this time.
posted by flyby22 at 6:47 PM on August 8, 2005

I have noticed an marked increase in what I call "subscription synchronizing" with my unfortunate Windows-bound/McAffee-using friends. I think that company deliberately messes up subscriptions so as to extort additional fees out of legitimate users. I've just seen it too many times not to suspect something fishy.

Don't go with them, AVG is perfectly fine. And Free.
posted by Invoke at 9:02 AM on August 9, 2005