Norton doesn't cause any trouble with Vegas specifically, but it screws up a lot of Windows systems in general.

Get Trend Micro instead. I have switched all my machines to TM, have been using it since years and never a problem.

A year ago I bought a laptop that came with Norton, so I let it sit and it worked OK (including with Vegas). When I lazily paid for an online renewal, Norton croaked and had to be completely uninstalled, and this has happened to many people.

Look at Amazon's user ratings on Norton, I have been able to verify many of these eye opener stories from helping other people with virus checker problems.

Thanks for the advice, guys. The PC I have comes pre-loaded with Norton and, in my experience, uninstalling Norton can be problematic in itself. If it doesn't mess with Vegas then I'd much rather leave it alone (until my next reformat in which case, no Norton).

Thanks again,

Faz

I've only ever had one problem uninstalling Norton AV, and that was when our Comptroller said, "but we paid $45 for it so shouldn't we be using it?". Other than that, every uninstall has been fast and painless.

There is a Norton Removal Tool on the web for download. It does a more thorough sweep of the registry for removal. I usually run it in addition to the standard uninstaller. Never had an issue removing Norton with it.

I use Norton AV as well as Acronis apps. No problems at all with Vegas.

Norton AntiVirus is one of the worst applications I have ever used. It makes a significant negative impact on your computer's performance. Everything feels sluggish, once it is installed and monitoring everything.

I thought perhaps this had been fixed, but just two weeks ago I was forced to install the latest version on my daughter's laptop (she just left for college). The college supplied the software as part of a site license. After installation, this wonderful laptop that we'd all been using for six months suddenly took 10-15 seconds to open applications that used to open in 1-2 seconds. Everything was slow.

Needless to say, I removed the stupid thing, and her computer is doing just fine without it.

If you have your computer correctly configured, work behind a hardware firewall, and don't download from unreliable sources things like software, media, etc., then I really question why anyone needs antivirus software. I've had lots of adware problems (although not anymore), but I've never had a computer infected with a virus.

If you have your computer correctly configured, work behind a hardware firewall, and don't download from unreliable sources things like software, media, etc., then I really question why anyone needs antivirus software.

Agreed. I use Panda for email virus checking, and that' s it. No other virus protection on my system. Once in a green moon I do something stupid in a websearch and get hit with adware, and iolo system mechanic catches it every time.

Norton (like many other antivirus programs) tries to scan every single file your system is opening, which will make things sluggish on slower computers.

Norton happens to be one of the slowest AV programs at scanning files.

There are definitely better alternatives to NAV (scan faster, no install/uninstall problems). AVG Antivirus FREE and Avast are two "free" AV programs.
NOD32 is a good commercial AV program (it is among the top in scanning speed).

You can also disable real-time file scanning (or whatever your AV calls it). Scanning overnight should keep your computer reasonably safe.

Instead of disabling scanning altogether, consider disabling scanning for just your video source and output directories. I know MacAfee has this feature, and that's how I have my machine configured. I _believe_ Norton has this feature too, but I don't have it installed on the machine I'm in front of, so I can't confirm.

If you use AVG (which I use on the kids' computer), the free edition does not appear to have this feature (at least I couldn't find it), though I believe the pay version does.

David