Norton high hard drive usage.

My father has recently had a problem with Norton security software, in that it has used up half of his hard drive downloading updates etc.

He tried to put something on his pc but was notified of the hard drive being almost full and when investigating the c drive found that the Norton file on the pc had 35 GB of Norton updates/files etc. On his 70gb pc this is quite a chunk! He rang Norton and they told him apparently this is normal, but surely this is not right as I checked the total file size of my Kaspersky security and it was 120MB.

Can anyone shed any light on this as I can't seem to find any answers for him on the internet anywhere that I fully understand. Thanks

Uninstall and reinstall norton... That is not normal.

Which Norton? Which Version?

Early versions of NAV had an option under Live Update to limit and clear the storage used for storing updates,

check the hdd for errors as well i had bad file system do that to 2 pcs in the past,

use the Norton removal tool and then re install the up to date version from there site be it 360, nav or NIS (skip using the disk) as the key covers any year of norton (2006 key works for 2012 for example)

http://updatecenter.norton.com/Manual/ChooseProduct

Does a NIS key work for NAV and v.v.?

no only year (Norton Antivirus key has to be Norton AntiVirus version but it can be any year, same for Norton Internet Security and Norton 360 key will only work for its named product but it can be any year {360 its 6.0})

when you get the version your trying to get make sure you pick the last year(NAV/NIS 2011 or 360 5.0) so it offers you the 2012 version or 360 6.0 version

check the hard disk for errors first (computer > c: right click on it > tools > check now > make sure first box is ticked press ok you need to restart the pc so it checks the hdd, if you tick the second one it take about an 1hr to scan the whole disk it should not be needed)

if you use the Norton removal tool or just uninstalled it normally, check to make sure the folder with the large files has gone, then install what ever product name you had on before (if you wish download the updated version use that or use the CD you had before but recommend to keep security software up to date)

Edited by leexgx (Thu 12-Apr-12 03:56:30)

In reply to a post by leexgx:

the key covers any year of norton (2006 key works for 2012 for example)

But the 2012 key does not work for 2006, i.e. you can't backdate, in case you are not reinstalling latest version but relying on existing version.

you should never go any lower then 2009 (2008 and lower was Bloated like Mcafee and kaspersky is today, ok if you got an Quad core cpu) as they rebuilt Norton from the ground up when they made 2009 so it installs and uninstalls in no time and does not hog system resources (no Messy Microsoft Installer as well) why i use it on all my customers pcs as its silent unless there is an issue

even on low end hardware (Norton is very well suited for netbooks or the rubbish New AMD APU low power 1-2ghz single an dual core cpus, tip never buy one only get one that is faster then 2ghz and dual core if its AMD or get an i3 or higher or an intel celeron i3 based cpu)

i seen my first PII 400MHz cpu today in years (BIOS date 1999 ! ) i loaded Norton Antivirus onto that(did not know right away it was 400MHz) and it was for the most part working fine (it did need more ram thought, only 196mb running xp), surprising the system was running OK for the most part (going to replace it with an refurb dell that's is going to be way faster)