Re: Please Help! System won't shut down

"RScotti" wrote

Well I guess I can't ague with the experts but I like the products and just order the Partition Magic from them.
I have herd other people saying these things but since I don't use their Registry fixer which seems to be the most
dangerous in the suite I usually don't have many problems. I like their Speed Drive, UnErase,One Button Check and the AV
and I bought these before I knew about your opinions which I do listen to.
I just can't afford to through money away. The NIS came preinstalled on my computer from HP so I thought they should
know what is best for their systems.I do use Registry Mechanic BTW is by their parent company Digital River and it seems
to work without any problems.

As far as my problem I will definitely monitor it I can't see how a program that creates a CD could fix this although I
also did run SFC. Maybe that fixed it but there was only one file fixed which was:
C:\windows\Microsoft.net\framework\v1.0.3705\gacutil.exe.

Your opinion?




On Mon, 11 Sep 2006 16:28:44 -0700, "Ken Blake, MVP" <kblake@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Rock wrote:

On the other hand we see many posts in here about problems created by
Symantec products including NIS and their AV. They are bloated and
very invasive. If they work well on your system then fine, use it. But I
believe there are better, less bloated, less invasive, and
better working alternatives.


I'm with you, but I'll go even further than that. I was one of those people
who used Norton products successfully for many years and poo-pooed the
advice of those who warned against it. I had it installed on all my own
machines and those of several others I supported. Then I started
experiencing a raft of problems of various types with it on several of those
machines.

Now I recommend against it for everybody. In my experience, even if you have
never had a problem with it, you're likely to have one soon. Not only are
there better, less bloated, less invasive, and better working alternatives,
most of them are also free.

Have a good day,
RScotti

remove "nospam" in order to email me.


Partition Magic is a good product, originally from PowerQuest which is the version I have. It is not like NIS or the AV. PM is not memory resident. It is invoked to do a specific job only. There is a lower cost alternative from Terabyte Unlimited called BootIt Next Generation (BING). It has a 30 day free trial, full featured version. I have not used it but many of the folks in here recommend it.

Bundled programs are as much an issue of marketing agreement between the OEM and the partner. It does not mean it's the best for your system. For anti-virus there is Avast (free version, which is what I use), AVG (free), Computer Associates Etrust (low cost). For firewall there is Zone Alarm which has a free version, and Sunbelt's Kerio Personal Firewall (low cost, which is what I use). For spyware, adware and other such there is Spybot S&D, Adaware, HijackThis, Spyware Blaster and Windows Defender. The other functions in Norton can be accomplished by tools within XP (or by free downloads) and/or don't add much value. For example XP's defrag works just fine. Registry cleaners are unnecessary and can be dangerous.

You may have spent money on some products but what is the cost to you for the time and grief spent on trying to fix things when they cause problems? One thing you will discover, if you carefully choose the apps, is the number of headaches goes down significantly and system stability increases immensely.

--
Rock [MVP Windows Shell/User]

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