RECYCLER

[ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb]

I run CCleaner regularly, so my Recycle Bin on the desktop is normally empty. Doing something on a drive that I rarely use, I found by accident that there are lots of things in the RECYCLER folder. Files that I have deleted long ago, together with items named S-1-5-21-1140603772-1961036861-1850952788-3986, S-1-5-21-1822439336-1161744426-439199626-500, S-1-5-21-1960408961-117609710-725345543-500 - all with a little recycle bin icon, and finally a folder named NPROTECT, dated 2003 something.

Now NPROTECT does sound like Norton, which a long time ago I once had installed - a big mistake, I had learned then, and it seems I am still paying for it now!

Question, if anybody knows: do I just delete these things manually from the RECYCLER folder, or will that mess things up even more?

P.S. I find these things (S-1-5-21-1140603772-1961036861-1850952788-3986, etc) on every NTFS drive. But some have only two of them, some have three.

[andsome]

Funny one this. I ran Norton for years. I have two hard drive. The second one is used only for storing my photographs. That is all that I have put onto it, and that is all that is still on it. No Norton programs anywhere. Have you tried Start/ Search, and looked everywhere including hidden files for Norton? Have you looked in the registry for Norton?

[D4\/!d]

I found that to get rid of Norton entirely you need to use this uninstall program.

[ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb]

Funny one this. I ran Norton for years. I have two hard drive. The second one is used only for storing my photographs. That is all that I have put onto it, and that is all that is still on it. No Norton programs anywhere. Have you tried Start/ Search, and looked everywhere including hidden files for Norton? Have you looked in the registry for Norton?

Found a few registry entries that pointed to a non-existent folder C:\Program Files\Norton Utilities; deleted them all with extreme prejudice. But I don't think that will improve anything.

I found that to get rid of Norton entirely you need to use this uninstall program.

I will not, ever, again install or run anything with the name :censored: Norton or :censored: Symantec on my system!

I remembered just now what happened to me a few years ago when I was naïve enough to install an evaluation version of :censored: Norton Utilities on my system. I tested a few things; they worked well, and after a few days I decided to buy the :censored: thing. But it didn't exist any more! They had replaced it with something called System Works, which had many features that I didn't want.

Ok then, I didn't buy it and forgot all about it.

Then, one morning, my system wouldn't boot. It came halfway up, then BSOD. It wouldn't start in normal mode, not in safe mode, not in any mode. I was able to boot on an old Win98 boot floppy, but naturally I couldn't see my NTFS partition.

I spent days - many days - to try to recover my system. I finally found a diagnostic tool that logged everything on startup, and that one pointed to Norton Utilities as the culprit! The evaluation period had expired, and the :censored: thing decided it wouldn't let me boot Windows with their expired evaluation software.

Nice tactics! That's the way to build a loyal user base! :blink:

I was eventually able to delete the Norton Utilities folder, and my system was able to boot again. But obviously some of their crap still remains on my system; years later!

Well, my system runs smoothly, so I do not really have to do something. I may do a system backup, then delete the thing manually from the RECYCLER.

Thanks for the suggestions! :)

Thanks for reading my Norton success story :D

[Corrected a few typos]

[andsome]

Funny I never had any problems with Norton. I used System works and AV and Firewall. The reason I got rid of them was because when I came to renew my subscription, the message was that I could renew for downloads for another year, but would not qualify for help as the program was out of date. This was this year for Norton 2003., a two years old program. I got rid of them and installed Nod 32.

[-pops-]

Like Pat, after some early disasters, nothing with the Norton or Symantec name gets near my machines. Even products that have been taken over by either name quickly get removed.

I used to be a fan of DriveImage but Symantec took it over and, perhaps by coincidence, perhaps not, the damned thing catastrophically failed on me shortly after the takeover.

I am grimly hanging on to my Sygate firewall as Symantec haven't got their jinx fingers on it yet but, at the first sign of interference, out it goes.

I come out in a nervous rash with McAfee products as well.

[CurlyWhirly]

I come out in a nervous rash with McAfee products as well

Norton was the first anti-virus I ever used and I got rid of it as it was taking up too many resources on my PC and was really slowing it down to a snail's pace.

I since have switched to McAfee and apart from a minor 'activeshield' problem which was fixed ages ago, McAfee hasn't caused me any more problems (touchwood).

[-pops-]

My problem with McAfee goes back a long way and is slightly different in that it didn't interfere (much) with the operation of my machine.

I bought a licence for one year via a special offer through Lloyds Bank. After six weeks the thing shut down on me saying that the licence had expired and I would have to buy another. I complained to McAfee and was told, more or less, that I had not read the T&C correctly and to get a new licence or stuff it.

Now, whether or not I had read the terms correctly, the money paid (and accepted by them) was for a one year subscription to their service - which they refused to abide by. After much argument and to-ing and fro-ing over a couple of months, I did eventually get an offer to complete the one year subscription but, in the time it had taken to sort things out, I had, fairly obviously, set myself up with another anti-virus. They would not give a refund on the money. By this time, I'd lost the will to live as far as that company were concerned and I gave up pursuing them.

In a conversation with the bank some time afterwards, they told me that mine wasn't the first problem they'd had with the McAfee promotion and I got a refund from them.

[andsome]

Glad you stuck to your guns. I know one or two people who have had McAffe problems. I am very happy so far with Sygate Firewall. However, if you visit the help page now, you will see that it is being run by Symantec, they are still offering a download of Sygate free though. I will stick with them as long as I can, as Nod 32 suggested them. Nod will be bring out an update to their AV sometime next year, to include a free firewall.

[mark2]

I've just checked on my system, for each partition there is a "Recycler" folder, containing 2-3 bin icons and the S filenames beside them, d/clicking them reveals the contents of the bin (if not emptied) once emptied the icons remain but d/clicking reveals the bin is empty. HTH

I also had problems with Norton and its firewall refusing to allow me to make any changes, but add/remove, brute force and ignorance cleaned it out eventually :D

[r4may]

Now NPROTECT does sound like Norton, which a long time ago I once had installed - a big mistake, I had learned then, and it seems I am still paying for it now!

To remove these 'Nprotected' files you woould have to run the recycle 'Empty Norton Protected files' when you had Norton running otherwise brute force or delete useing the command prompt and delete

I have used Norton for years and do not suffer from any problems.

Andsome

There is a 'naughty' way to get the updates for 2003 for another 12 months without subscribing.

[ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb]

Took a full system backup (40 mins, 14GB), deleted everything from the RECYCLER folders, ran restorerecyclebin.reg (just in case), rebooted, and now the Recycle Bin works normally.

I think I may just do another system backup...

Thanks for all the advice and comments! :flowers: