Norton virus Ware

I began to see a problem materializing in my FS9 airplane and gauge folders, my GPS has been removed for all my

panels, also gauges were being removed as well. I was prepared for this, I removed all the most important parts

from my F9 folder and placed them in a safe folder. I uninstalled the f9 then reinstalled f9 again. Everything was

new as it was then I moved my fs9 files from my safe folder to my new installed fs9 with the exception of the

old gauges folder. I only used the new gauges folder and checked it to be sure the GPS gauge was there...which

it was before I did all of the above I deactivated the Norton Virus which I have found has been removing my gauges

my GPS. I am sure many people have had this experience. Anytime I now add a new plane I shut down the Norton

program as it will begin removing my gauges and GPS . There is a error in the Norton program that will eliminate

your gauges like mind, I now just turn it off when I am off line and turn it on when I am on line.

 

Casey Jones

I presume you are referring to the "anti-virus" detection built in to Norton Security? Or something else?

 

Morton can be aggressive, sometimes a bit too aggressive, but I have used it for years and not experienced what you describe. I think you need to delve into your settings.

 

You can tell it not to scan certain types of file, and you can tell it not to scan specific drives if you want. You can also turn off or adjust SONAR, which is a specific feature that tries to guess at as yet identified viruses and, sadly, often gets it wrong. Finally, you can recover and "whitelist" anything Norton has identified as suspicious from the safe area it has placed it.

 

I have to say I have never, ever, experienced loss of gauges (and have had FS2004 since day one) so I am sure your settings must be at a very high level.

 

Best regards,

 

John

Have a look at Bitdefender Free instead. It's free, cloud-based and pretty decent in terms of detection. Or you could in theory drop anti-virus software and use something like Time Freeze so that nothing sticks in the OS. Meaning if you get a virus all you have to do is reboot the computer. You will however have to setup folder exclusions like the recycle bin, downloads folder, the my documents, folder, desktop, the Sim folder, etc otherwise data written to these folders won't stick on computer reboot.

 

https://www.bitdefender.com/solutions/free.html

 

http://www.toolwiz.com/lead/toolwiz_time_freeze.php

 

To see the recycle bin path it is shown in C drive when you go to folder options and show protected operating system components.

Hi Casey,

 

Like John, I have used Norton for many years and have never known (or heard of before) it deleting/reporting any gauge files, both in FS2004 and FSX.

 

It is also a certainty that, if Norton is the culprit, based on what you have posted simply shutting down Norton whilst installing new stuff or when not online will not fix the issue. By default, Norton carries out regular scans whether or not there is an internet connection and so will flag/delete the files anyway, even when you restore them, unless you 'whitelist' them.

 

You state that the problem is 'recent', It seems strange that Norton has started to delete files that, presumably, have been installed for some time and have not be deleted by Norton before. So could it be that the affected gauge(s) could be a result of 'replacement' gauge(s) that has overwritten the original default and/or safe gauge(s) when you installed a recent a new panel/gauge package and it is these that fails the AV testing.

 

What happens if you leave only default FS9 files installed and run a manual scan - does Norton pick up the gauge as bad? Again, what happens if you run a scan on the contents of the 'old' folder, assuming of course you have restored the deleted suspect files?.

 

When you view the files in the History > Quarantined Items list it will give details of the specific threat that was detected. This is valuable information that will give an indication of whether it is a real virus being detected or if the detection is a 'False positive'.

 

Prior to 'whitelisting' the file do the following:

 

A. Restore the file.

B. Check the file by uploading it to Virus Total - see HERE - this will check the file against numerous AV suites.

C. If the file is clean use the Norton Insight function to 'Trust' (i.e. whitelist' the file - this will exclude the file from normal scans.

Files suddenly disappearing can be a sign of a failing hard drive or memory module - it may be worth a check.

 

Sent from my 5044Y using Tapatalk

As a person who has built/repaired computers since 1996 I would get rid of Norton. Norton is nothing but trouble. Go with Bitdefender Free as someone else has mentioned. Eset antivirus is good if you want to stay with a paid antivirus. But definitely get rid of Norton.

I remember back when I messed with Macintosh you ran Norton for all kinds of stuf. Disk fixers and what have you. Good times trying to break my school's At Ease system. LOL

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_Ease

 

https://jurassicsystems.com/ I've tried all kinds of commands.

Thank You Everyone for your imput, I will now use your advice on this

 

Casey

Norton Insight can block files unknown to it. As history may show a minimum user count and also if a user has reported a problem file Insight will block it.

 

Very infrequently a user will deliberately report a file because of some nefarious incident with that developer and bears a grudge. Check the antivirus history report to see why a file is blocked. I recently experienced a problem like that with a well known application I have been using for a long time installing an update. I just marked the offending file as safe and my installation completed.

Most decent AV providers allow you to submit files for checking - I do that rather than risk marking files as "safe" on guesswork. Norton (at least) will check, respond very quickly, and adjust in the next update for the benefit of every user of their software.

 

John

I used to use Norton and yes it was removing all my gauge files and placing them into quarantine. I was able to adjust it to ignore files with the .gau extension and eventually just excluded the entire FS9 folder from future scans. I use Webroot Secure Anywhere now and I am much happier with it. It is not a resource hog like Norton was.