Hi

I'm at my wit's end regarding difficulties I'm having installing Norton AntiVirus 2005. Here's my situation:

1. I purchased a used computer that already had Norton Internet Security Professional and AntiVirus 2003 installed about 18 months ago. I did not receive the original installation disks.

2. Everything was working fine until a couple of weeks ago when I got hit with CoolWebSearch and VX2 malware that, among other nasty things, somehow destroyed AntiVirus2003 and Security Professional.

3. Without the original disks I had no choice but to buy a copy of AntiVirus 2005. I figured I'd have to anyway, and I'd have to live without the other program for now.

4. Since I was concerned about having no virus protection at a time when malware was doing unpredictable things to my machine, I installed AntiVirus 2005 before resolving the malware problem. Probably not a good idea. But Norton seemed to be working fine and it even restored Security Professional to working order, somehow.

5. I resolved the malware issue, but I found that I was not able to activate Norton AntiVirus 2005. Symantec's online support is the worst I have ever encountered, and when I eventually found a phone number to call for manual program activation, it told me I had to give some sort of code number that should have appeared on screen when I installed -- but did not. (This was some sort of product number but NOT the Product Key number which I have on the CDROM envelope.

6. I left it for a few days but remembered my 15 days were running out. It was suggested to me that I reinstall Norton Antivirus since it's possible the malware had corrupted its installation. So I uninstalled it first, of course.

7. Reboot. Norton Security Professional still worked. I went to reinstall AntiVirus but it stopped with an error message that a NEWER VERSION of AntiVirus was on my machine and it had to be removed before I installed the program.

8. I checked Add/Remove Programs and saw a listing for Norton WMI Update, which had the same logo as Norton 2005. I tried to uninstall it, but it wouldn't let me (said I needed to have the program installed in order to uninstall it :eek: ).

So where I'm sitting at right now is I have a $75 coaster and a computer that has no virus protection (though apparently it does still have some level of malware/spyware blocking since Security Professional still works).

I'm so fed up right now I'm probably going to buy Macafee's program tomorrow and write this off to experience (and, fortunately, as a business expense on my taxes later). I really am disgusted by Symantec's non-support and I resent having to pay half the purchase price to find out how to fix this problem.

Can anyone out there help me?

Thanks!

Alex