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 Home > Views & Reviews > Symantec Technical Support U-turn |
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I've been using Norton Utilities from Symantec for many years now, through many versions and many
operating systems (i.e. DOS onwards). Their maintenance and optimization tools are pretty much
the de facto standard for Windows, especially when compared to the awful built-in tools from Microsoft.
One of the tools included for many years now is the Norton System Doctor, which monitors various aspects of Windows and provides early warnings of potential problems. Now, I don't normally allow System Doctor to run, as it can be bulky and often over-zealous in its warning. However, I recently noticed that it can be used to display the Windows Performance Data (PerfData) values in a much nicer way than the built-in applet; you can have graphs, histograms, gauges, etc. A quick glance at my homepage confirms my obsession with monitoring numerous aspects of Windows, and many of my applets have been created because I never found a nice way to display the information made available by Windows. It was with some optimism that I found this new front-end to hopefully make this information available in a pretty fashion. I loaded System Doctor, dropped all the default Sensors and added a couple of the PerfData sensors showing information about Exchange Server queues on a remote machine. This worked well. However, a few days later I tried to re-load that set of sensors only to discover that they wouldn't show any data...; they just displayed "Busy". I tried to drop and re-add the sensors, but couldn't get System Doctor to play ball. I turned to the Symantec site, and posted a message in their Forum:
I've certainly been able to do so at some point a few weeks ago, but when I tried to reload those sensors they would not retrieve the data from the remote computer; they just hung as "Busy". So, I deleted and tried to re-create each of the three sensors I had defined. Now, if I try and add any PerfData sensors, when I enter the Computer I get "Computer name not found", whether I try and use my own machine or a remote machine. Any thoughts? The first reply was the expected "Have you installed all the latest updates? Have any of the computers changed name? Does the XP Performance Monitor work?" questions. Fair enough. I confirmed that nothing had changed, that the built-in XP monitor worked, etc. and was amazed to see this as a reply:
If you need additional assistance with Norton SystemWorks, please let us know. Sincerely, Keith Smith Symantec Technical Support Eh?!
The PerfData sensor has a prompt for "Computer", which has a browse facility for any machine on the network. Why would this be available, if it wasn't designed to use any computer but the host machine. Even if it were designed to only allow the host machine, that doesn't work either. If I enter my own computer name, I get the same "Computer name not found" message. Sure, I could use the built-in Performance Monitor, but the point is I think that System Doctor puts a much nicer interface on the data and that was my motivation for trying this feature. I can't believe it took you two days to come up with the utterly pathetic answer you posted above. If you're simply not interested in solving this problem, just say so and I'll go elsewhere in future. I was fuming (can you tell?). Why even bother having a Support operation if they exist purely to try and fob you off with some lame bullshit answer like that..?! I was contemplating my next move on this one, when suddenly they posted another reply:
Again, I am sorry for the inconvenience. Please let me know if you have additional questions about your Norton Utilities. Kitte Knight Now I'm really confused... Didn't they just say it was working how it was designed? A major U-turn there, I think you'll agree. Perhaps they have a filter that detects whether the customer appears to be swallowing their crap, and automatically switch to "Mrs. Sensible Support-person" when they realise they have a fight on. The moral: Stick your ground when you get a moron 'supporting' you; hopefully his Mother will come and clip him round there ear and take over.
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