Flamestar

Patrick was offering the right advice. The likely explanation for your
problem is that your earlier removal of Norton Anti Virus and Norton
Ghost. was not done in the correct way. This probably  meant that the
removal tool was not able to work as it should. In this situation one
way to proceed would be to reinstall Norton Anti Virus and Norton Ghost
and then use the Norton removal tool. Given what you have since tried I
would not think this is now a feasible way to proceed.

What was the precise version of the Norton product(s) installed? Did you
print off and study the instructions before using the Norton removal
tool?
http://www.symantec.com/norton/support/selectproduct_ts.jsp

The removal of Norton products has for years presented considerable
difficulties for the average user so it is not surprising that you
encountered difficulties. Many Technical Support staff often have not
been fully trained to handle the problems they are asked to resolve. On
the other hand they are often trying to help users who have limited
computing skills. The technical nature of the issues involved can also
cause difficulties when one explains to the other what they are seeing
and what has to be done.

Reading your latest post tells me that you are capable of confusing
whoever is listening to you. This is not intended as a criticism. My
feeling is based on seeing how you present information. An example of
this is how you say at one point you paid Norton and later you say
Norton did not charge! Also the this statement by you is ambiguous "I
have been Norton free for about 8 months."! Does this mean that  Norton
was removed 8 months ago or your first attempt was 8 months ago?

This statement suggests to me that you do not fully understand the full
implications of what you are saying  "I would think I removed Norton and
it would rebuild it self. That’s right I would think it was gone and a
few days later it would return.". If Norton is removed it stays removed
unless you do something to restore it. Thus if you restored your system
from a backup then you would have Norton again but that requires action
by the user. Restoration does not occur without user input. Norton Ghost
is capable of providing backup images. However you say you removed that
programme. Elephant Drive is an Online Data Storage system and it could
be that you have reintroduced Norton from restoring from your Elephant
Drive facility. We can only guess! It's for you to say whether this is
what you have done?

Your first post said "Norton Cannot Be Removed and Disables Competing
Products." Norton does interfere with programmes that try to make
changes to the Windows Registry. Users of Norton products need to be
aware of this and work round the problems this causes. However, there
are a number of other similar products that do similar things. What
anti-virus and anti-spyware programmes are you using? What firewall are
you using?

I should mention that the the first person who responded to your request
for help was a troll named "pcbutts1  [MS MVP]". There was nothing wrong
with his advice but he is not an MS MVP. Equally Patrick Keenan amd
myself are not an MS MVP but then we do not pretend to be something we
are not.

You didn’t read my post.
===

Yes, I did read it.   Please read my response carefully.

If you can't follow the directions, it's time to pay someone to help you,
someone who will actually *sit at the keyboard*.

HTH
-pk

<snippage>

That is nonsense, I can remove any Norton products, I have done so many
times.  I can also disable any Norton products without removing them.

John

On May 1, 10:25 pm, "Patrick Keenan" <t...@dev.null> wrote:

Why?

Norton Cannot Be Removed and Disables Competing Products.
Can’t anything be done about Norton attacking other programs?

This is not a request for directions. Unless you think you have a set
of directions that will change the whole Norton product line.

Over 6 months ago Norton Ghost stopped working. Norton said the
version was so old they wouldn’t support it so I uninstalled and
deleted it.
However it kept coming back.

This is not a request for directions only a statement of fact.

This led me to doubt Norton Antivirus so  tried install other anti-
viruses but other anti virus programs but
Norton Anti virus deleted them.

This is not a request for directions only a statement of fact.

Then I found that Norton antivirus could not be uninstalled. I tried
support but they said they could do nothing. The problem was antivirus
and ghost would reinstall the other program but I kept calling and
found someone who agreed to help.

This is not a request for directions only a statement of fact.

He really wasn’t supposed to. To be clear there was another
department
that was supposed uninstall my version of Norton anti-virus but they
never answered the phone.

This is not a request for directions only a statement of fact.

It took nearly ten hours for customer
service to remove both antivirus and ghost.  The reason was Norton
hides its files all over the hard drive and has to be uninstalled by
hand.

This is not a request for directions only a statement of fact.

Ok so I get bit defender and elephant drive. They work great. Norton
never ever worked as good as either program. Bit Defender gives me
much more information and control in dealing with a virus. Elephant
Drive actually worked unlike Ghost.

This is not a request for directions only a statement of fact.

Three days ago Elephant Drive stops working. I do all the erase and
install stuff and make sure everything’s right and then I chat with
the Elephant Drive help. We go through everything again. Then we
check
the registry and it’s a little strange but ok Then one last thing, a
nested file for elephant drive, so down and down we go and hiding
deep
in an Elephant Drive file is Norton Ghost.

I did not say the program was back only that there was a file I found
where it is illegal for such a file to be found and that file is
called Norton Ghost.

I did not say the whole Norton  Ghost software package was there and
if you could read you would know it.

============================

You're back?

As well as being defensive, your posts are now recursively all about your
posts and attacking responders, not about your problem. You could also learn
a little humilty. An attitude of  "Hey, everyone, I've got such-and-such
problem; can anybody please help?" is utterly lacking in your posts. I'm not
even entirely convinced that you're not just trolling.

But then, looking back, your original post is off-topic. All you originally
asked was,

"Can’t anything be done about Norton attacking other programs?"

with the follow-up comment:

"This is not a request for directions. Unless you think you have a set of
directions that will change the whole Norton product line."

So, what *is* it that you want? Doing something to stop Norton doing the
attacking in the first place is OT - it would be a change to Norton, and
nothing to do with XP. Or perhaps it would be a matter for Dell, what with
their "burning Norton in to ROM" that you suspect.

And should anyone dare to question your assertion that "Norton cannot be
removed" you get in a terrible tizzy.

I'd just repeat what LVTravel said a while back:

"Enough is enough.  If you don't like the answers you get here, go somewhere
else like back to Norton.  This is a newsgroup for XP new users.... The best
way to ensure that Norton is totally uninstalled, in your case, is to
totally reinstall Windows from scratch, don't use any of your backup except
for individual data files and your programs from their original disks."

*plonk*