W3WN
05-27-2010, 11:08 AM
This recently came to light, and in the event we have others in the situation, I thought you should know:
Symantec (owners of Norton Antivirus) declared "End of Life" years ago on several products, including Norton AV 8.x, Norton AV Corporate Edition 8.x, and so forth. Despite the official lack of support, AV updates were (seemingly) still available.
That all changed on or about May 11th. People uploading their older systems found that they could no longer scan their hard drives; NAV (or whatever) would tell them that the "scan (was) stopped by user."
It's not entirely clear what the cause of this was. More than a few argue that this was a deliberate step by Symantec to force users of the older product to upgrade to the latest flavor. Symantec support claims that this was an unintended consequence, and since they no longer test application in EOL, they had no way of knowing it would happen... and since the products are in EOL they won't try and fix it, either.
Support then goes on to question why anyone would be using 8 year old AV software today, and at least one support person implies that this only affects stolen ("borrowed" "liberated" unlicensed etc) software or installations. See for yoursef:
http://www.symantec.com/connect/forums/scan-stopped-user
...that aside, the fact remains that there are still embedded or proprietary applications that run on Windows 2000, Windows NT, Windows ME, Windows 98, even Windows 95. Many of these are commercial use applications (ie laboratories and research facilities).
And I can personally vouch that a local network TV station runs several graphics editing machines on Windows NT, I've seen them on the tour of their new facility (yes CGC, I have pictures). I also know that a local hospital runs several machines on NT that are used to look at X-rays and similar image files -- I worked there a few years ago as a contractor before taking my current job.
The fact is that many of these businesses run on the old principle of "it ain't broke, so don't fix it." They need an AV package for the older hardware. Now their legitimate license has effectively been disabled, with no prior warning. (And who reads EOL messages posted on a company web site, anyway? Especially when one has no reason to check that web site for any other business purpose)
Bottom line: If someone you know (or you) is running the old Symantec AV software, it may no longer be working or working correctly. Suggest they update or outright replace it ASAP before they get hit with a little nasty.
Symantec (owners of Norton Antivirus) declared "End of Life" years ago on several products, including Norton AV 8.x, Norton AV Corporate Edition 8.x, and so forth. Despite the official lack of support, AV updates were (seemingly) still available.
That all changed on or about May 11th. People uploading their older systems found that they could no longer scan their hard drives; NAV (or whatever) would tell them that the "scan (was) stopped by user."
It's not entirely clear what the cause of this was. More than a few argue that this was a deliberate step by Symantec to force users of the older product to upgrade to the latest flavor. Symantec support claims that this was an unintended consequence, and since they no longer test application in EOL, they had no way of knowing it would happen... and since the products are in EOL they won't try and fix it, either.
Support then goes on to question why anyone would be using 8 year old AV software today, and at least one support person implies that this only affects stolen ("borrowed" "liberated" unlicensed etc) software or installations. See for yoursef:
http://www.symantec.com/connect/forums/scan-stopped-user
...that aside, the fact remains that there are still embedded or proprietary applications that run on Windows 2000, Windows NT, Windows ME, Windows 98, even Windows 95. Many of these are commercial use applications (ie laboratories and research facilities).
And I can personally vouch that a local network TV station runs several graphics editing machines on Windows NT, I've seen them on the tour of their new facility (yes CGC, I have pictures). I also know that a local hospital runs several machines on NT that are used to look at X-rays and similar image files -- I worked there a few years ago as a contractor before taking my current job.
The fact is that many of these businesses run on the old principle of "it ain't broke, so don't fix it." They need an AV package for the older hardware. Now their legitimate license has effectively been disabled, with no prior warning. (And who reads EOL messages posted on a company web site, anyway? Especially when one has no reason to check that web site for any other business purpose)
Bottom line: If someone you know (or you) is running the old Symantec AV software, it may no longer be working or working correctly. Suggest they update or outright replace it ASAP before they get hit with a little nasty.