Symantec's AntiVirus 10 Deployment Woes?

loraksus asks: "We recently deployed Symantec AV Corporate version 10 across on our network and have been having nothing but problems. The new client breaks the MS Office install and causes machines to slow down significantly - some almost to the point of being completely unusable. The client (doscan.exe) also crashes very frequently (daily), and tends to take other things down with it. Symantec's 'workaround' is to drop by every workstation and insert the Office (or Wordperfect, it screws up both applications) CD, remove some office shortcuts and disable some virus scans. Since we manage clients over WAN links hundreds of miles away, this really isn't an option, nor is it an acceptable option given the number of workstations we manage. Are there any other admins dealing with this? Any advice? Solutions?" "It seems that more and more closed source companies are now rushing software out the door that not only has a couple bugs, but glaring errors that would have easily been caught in even the most basic testing. Of course, we in IT usually have no recourse against these companies other than never buying their products, again.

Do you folks have any advice when it comes to dealing vendors who release software that is unusuable and can't provide an acceptable resolution?"

Comments

My advice:

[virid]

Very simple. Get a refund and call Trend Micro.

Re:Uh... you tested it first right?

[zephos]

Actually its only your fault if the software works as expected but YOU screwed something up for it not to work properly. If Symantic promised that it would scan virii without messing up his system(s) and he followed the install/configuration procedures perfectly then it isn't his fault that the software doesn't work as expected. It is the vendors fault for selling faulty software. Now it wasn't advantageous for him to have rolled it out untested, but it isn't the admins fault if the product doesn't work as it is advertised. It was foolish NOT to test the software first, but it isn't their fault that it broke everything. If i buy a new car, it is smart to test drive it first, but it isn't an obligation. If I don't test drive it, then buy it, and then on the highway the breaks fail and I crash into another car, I'm not responsible, the dealer [or manufacturor] is. People might not think I'm a genious, but they won't fault me. [Or at least they shouldn't.]

Re:pain

[Paul Jakma]

if I had any modpoints left, I'd mod you down. ... He's managing systems across a WAN, it should be obvious that that's even less a solution than Synaptic suggested.

It's a much better solution. Granted it'd take time to plan and implement and familiarise users with new software, but in the long run - much better solution.

Note that I gave the URL for ClamWin, which would be a 'quick' (well, quicker) solution. I've havn't used ClamWin extensively, but its light enough to run on windows running under Qemu without noticeable effect, and ClamAV on Unix has worked amazingly well for me in keeping mailboxes I administer free of Windows virus crap. Also free. If his existing AV software sucks, he could try that.

However, in the long run, trying to work around frustration after frustration in programmes which apparently are in a battle to run the clock out on Moore's "law", whose only reason for existing is the awful security of the OS they run on, the other options on my list are definitely better solutions, in the long run.

--paulj

Re:What I've seen

[loraksus]

The thing is, if you have office 2k on win 2k, you don't get a nice dialogue box and it isn't 2%, but closer to 100%.
Guess what we are running? :(
XP boxes tend to not have the same amount of trouble with this.