I wanted to start a thread about bad experiences with specific software.  When a specific product or company causes you a lot of grief, statisitics say, that you tell at least 40-50 others about how bad that product/company was.   I know that when I feel burned or am upset, I try to tell as many people as I can.

So, in this thread, I wanted you guys to share the bad experiences and let others know.

Off the top of my head, some of the bad software experiences I have had have been with Norton and McAfee.  I will post details of why, a bit later...

So how about you, any bad experiences with software?

The only real bad experience I have had antivirus wise was with nortons it kept crashing and letting bugs and viruses through.
Since not using it or installing it on anything now things run a lot better and smoother.
Also some trouble with AOL that came preinstalled on my laptop I bought, took me 3 days to finally get rid of it also McAfee said it was free on laptop but when went to register laptop found I had to buy it so as to use the warrenty.
Being as I know how to repair the system took McAfee off, (would not recommend taking it off if you have no way off repairing laptops or standalone computers)  or know someone who can do the repair for you as it does void the warrenty, now have NOD32 on both computers.
Also 2 keyboards one by labtec and one by logitec both I found froze at times for no reason at all, so now installed windows own  brand and no freezes at all.

This is hardware stuff but still...Over the years I have had a "Trust" wireless mouse that needed new batteries every 2 days, a Trust digi-camera that wouldnt work at all and a Trust joy-stick that wouldn't work either! Cheap hardware.  Don't trust em!

Thank you for the in put and glad we are able to be of help.

Glad to hear that it wasn't just me vs. Symantec/Norton. When I uninstalled it from my daughters puter, I must have had 200+ lines to edit out in Registry, searching on "Norton", "Symantec" and "Norton SystemWorks". They leave a lot of junk behind, even after you run their "uninstall".

re: "Ghost"
If you stop at version 9 it will look and back up exactly like Powerquest's Drive Image. In 15+ years, it saved my butt many times. At little advice to all you Grand-Parents that have Grand-Children visiting and wanting to use Pop Pops or Mom Moms puter. BACK UP WITH GHOST or whatever BEFORE they arrive with the wrecking crew. They will download just about everything time will permit before they go home. When they are getting in the car, my "GHOST" has already begun its RESTORE. I sleep at lot better at night after implimenting this procedure.

re: "Organization"
Anyone who doesn't have some degree of organization, regular system backups, etc. should not complain when something or someone gets into their system and raises $#$#!$$#@. The old saying is very true, "It's not a matter of IF a system will crash, but WHEN"!
I have seen two grown persons "cry" when they lost everything and I told them -"Sorry Charlie". I recently had an ex IBM'er format his hard drive by mistake and physically cry over the long distance call from Maine. Luckily, I had the program to restore 99% of his files - "I own him for life"!

ranril

Naturally, if you have the largest market share one becomes the benchmark, Norton is the benchmark for most malware makers then and is therefore the reason why a lot of malware gets through on it.

Back in 2000 I bought Mcafee office pro, It was a full set of utilities.You talk about blue screens and restart problems.I finally quite fighting with it and Mcafee and took it off.I have ran norton over the years and had some problems with them also.I started running avg free about two years ago and it has been flawless. I also installed a labtec wireless mouse and key board about six months ago and had nothing but trouble.Restarts and programs freezing up.No driver updates for it and no help from labtec, so needless to say those two are deep in the basement.Tryed to take it back to wally world and they said no go because it was electronic ???? I should have bought it from new egg at least I could have gotten it replaced.