If it's like the beta, it'll be good!!, 06 Sep 2008
If this product is anything like the beta version, this is going to be a vast improvement over the 2008 version. New features like Norton Insight, which allows you to scan files and compare them to trusted versions on the Norton servers means full system scans will be much quicker, due to these files being ignored if they haven't changed since Insight was run! Another great feature, which has appeared is the site adviser, similar to McAfee's, which can be downloaded as part of an add-on pack.

If this wasn't enough, liveupdate has been re-engineered to make it quicker, with updates more frequently, meaning you're always protected. The whole program itself is also much faster, which certainly will be popular with a lot of customers!

So is it all good then? Well if there is a downside to this review, I haven't seen it yet!

EDIT: Good news! It's just as good, and customers with existing subscriptions can upgrade free from the Symantec US site! (Which is what I did, with no problems!)

Brand New - Full UK Retail Boxed - Exactly the same as amazons - Price includes VAT and invoice supplied.

If it's like the beta, it'll be good!!, 06 Sep 2008
If this product is anything like the beta version, this is going to be a vast improvement over the 2008 version. New features like Norton Insight, which allows you to scan files and compare them to trusted versions on the Norton servers means full system scans will be much quicker, due to these files being ignored if they haven't changed since Insight was run! Another great feature, which has appeared is the site adviser, similar to McAfee's, which can be downloaded as part of an add-on pack.

If this wasn't enough, liveupdate has been re-engineered to make it quicker, with updates more frequently, meaning you're always protected. The whole program itself is also much faster, which certainly will be popular with a lot of customers!

So is it all good then? Well if there is a downside to this review, I haven't seen it yet!

EDIT: Good news! It's just as good, and customers with existing subscriptions can upgrade free from the Symantec US site! (Which is what I did, with no problems!)

Would never touch a Symantec Product Again, 18 Jul 2008
The product is an absolute joke. And the Technical Support / Customer Service at Symantec is even worse.

1.) Upon Starting the PC I am greeted with multiple pop-ups - Virus Definitions Out of Date and Virus Scan Out of Date etc etc. On entering the software everything is ok.....
2.) The system seems to hang on the "one button check up" during the Norton Cleanup scan and then after 30 minutes will find files to clean up. Example found 763 then cleaned. Immediately ran again and found 1091, then cleaned (again). Immediately ran again and found 2111.
3.) Have used Symantec Chat on 4 occasions and each time they tell me that it is sorted. When I start the computer again, the problems start again.

On the 4th occasion i spent over 1 hour being passed from person to person, each as seemingly useless as the other.

I would never consider using this again even if backed into a corner and threatened with extreme torture.

Hope this helps....

PS. I run a very new and highly specced PC with Vista (which is also fraught with problems) (however Symantec do assure us that the software is fully compatible with VISTA....

Norton Internet Security 2008 Plus SystemWorks Basic Edition Bundle Pack, 1 User Edition (PC)

THE BUSINESS Will do me nicely THANKYOU., 25 Apr 2008
Originally Symantec allowed me to download 2008 free when i was using 2007 on Windows XP and i liked what i saw.

The new programme takes complete control of your computer to such an extent that to some it may be overpowering but along with McAfee,Norton is one of the best sellers in Virus Software.

If you are accustomed to using 2007 then you will certainly like 2008 as it is set out logically similarly to 2007.

Norton 2008 looks in certain ways very similar to the previous 2007 and operates in a very similar way but the entire programme has been vastly improved appearence wise and there are fewer boxes to tick but the new software automatically asks you do you want to run Live Update or allow this programme to run.

Some people will find the intrusion of all these boxes opening up every now and then annoying but the information these boxes ask really simplifies the security of your internet browsing.

I have only one complaint about 2008 and that is its the only operating system for Windows Vista.

Previously i had been happily using an almost new 2007 Norton on Xp with still over two hundered days of subscription to go but my Xp became sluggish and tempremental so wisely or foolishly i do not know i formatted my entire computers Hard Drive and installed Vista Premium.

Vista is a dream to use when you get the hang of it and the Aero interface is really usefull.There are so many background enhancements for the overall performance and appearence of Vista that im pleased i took the plunge but come on Symantec allow 2007 to work on it aswell.

Having visited my local branch of Staples recently i noticed they were selling 2008 for a very decent £24.95 including a free Systems Doctor disc aswell.

This disc was intended for the future when my 2007 subscription expired but lo and behold 2007 is only compatible with Xp and willnot work on Vista so thankfully i had a new 2008 disc waiting and im very pleased with the goods so far.

IF YOU ARE USING 2007 YOU WILL CERTAINLY ENJOY THE PLEASURES OF USING 2008.

Norten, 12 Apr 2008
I have used norton for the past 4 years. I think this securty is the best.

If it's like the beta, it'll be good!!, 06 Sep 2008
If this product is anything like the beta version, this is going to be a vast improvement over the 2008 version. New features like Norton Insight, which allows you to scan files and compare them to trusted versions on the Norton servers means full system scans will be much quicker, due to these files being ignored if they haven't changed since Insight was run! Another great feature, which has appeared is the site adviser, similar to McAfee's, which can be downloaded as part of an add-on pack.

If this wasn't enough, liveupdate has been re-engineered to make it quicker, with updates more frequently, meaning you're always protected. The whole program itself is also much faster, which certainly will be popular with a lot of customers!

So is it all good then? Well if there is a downside to this review, I haven't seen it yet!

EDIT: Good news! It's just as good, and customers with existing subscriptions can upgrade free from the Symantec US site! (Which is what I did, with no problems!)

Would never touch a Symantec Product Again, 18 Jul 2008
The product is an absolute joke. And the Technical Support / Customer Service at Symantec is even worse.

1.) Upon Starting the PC I am greeted with multiple pop-ups - Virus Definitions Out of Date and Virus Scan Out of Date etc etc. On entering the software everything is ok.....
2.) The system seems to hang on the "one button check up" during the Norton Cleanup scan and then after 30 minutes will find files to clean up. Example found 763 then cleaned. Immediately ran again and found 1091, then cleaned (again). Immediately ran again and found 2111.
3.) Have used Symantec Chat on 4 occasions and each time they tell me that it is sorted. When I start the computer again, the problems start again.

On the 4th occasion i spent over 1 hour being passed from person to person, each as seemingly useless as the other.

I would never consider using this again even if backed into a corner and threatened with extreme torture.

Hope this helps....

PS. I run a very new and highly specced PC with Vista (which is also fraught with problems) (however Symantec do assure us that the software is fully compatible with VISTA....

Norton Internet Security 2008 Plus SystemWorks Basic Edition Bundle Pack, 1 User Edition (PC)

THE BUSINESS Will do me nicely THANKYOU., 25 Apr 2008
Originally Symantec allowed me to download 2008 free when i was using 2007 on Windows XP and i liked what i saw.

The new programme takes complete control of your computer to such an extent that to some it may be overpowering but along with McAfee,Norton is one of the best sellers in Virus Software.

If you are accustomed to using 2007 then you will certainly like 2008 as it is set out logically similarly to 2007.

Norton 2008 looks in certain ways very similar to the previous 2007 and operates in a very similar way but the entire programme has been vastly improved appearence wise and there are fewer boxes to tick but the new software automatically asks you do you want to run Live Update or allow this programme to run.

Some people will find the intrusion of all these boxes opening up every now and then annoying but the information these boxes ask really simplifies the security of your internet browsing.

I have only one complaint about 2008 and that is its the only operating system for Windows Vista.

Previously i had been happily using an almost new 2007 Norton on Xp with still over two hundered days of subscription to go but my Xp became sluggish and tempremental so wisely or foolishly i do not know i formatted my entire computers Hard Drive and installed Vista Premium.

Vista is a dream to use when you get the hang of it and the Aero interface is really usefull.There are so many background enhancements for the overall performance and appearence of Vista that im pleased i took the plunge but come on Symantec allow 2007 to work on it aswell.

Having visited my local branch of Staples recently i noticed they were selling 2008 for a very decent £24.95 including a free Systems Doctor disc aswell.

This disc was intended for the future when my 2007 subscription expired but lo and behold 2007 is only compatible with Xp and willnot work on Vista so thankfully i had a new 2008 disc waiting and im very pleased with the goods so far.

IF YOU ARE USING 2007 YOU WILL CERTAINLY ENJOY THE PLEASURES OF USING 2008.

Norten, 12 Apr 2008
I have used norton for the past 4 years. I think this securty is the best.

DO not buy Norton its rubbish, 01 Oct 2008
I've actually owned a lot of Norton stuff, and my god do they slow down your computer to a snails pace.

It gets in everywhere and screws everything up.

If you want a decent Internet Security package, check out Kaspersky, you can download it from their site - much much better.

Norton is rubbish.

Download It from the Norton US site for far less EOM, 19 Jul 2008
Paying UK full price for Norton products is a mug's game - just dowload it from their US site.

Does the job fine, 21 Jun 2008
I use Norton 2008 and it does the job fine. Old versions of Norton had a reputation for being a bit slow but 2008 seems pretty good - and faster than my old AVG. I haven't used Ghost so can't comment on that part.

DONT BUY, 16 Jun 2008

Norton is one of the worst viurs protection software, and its has a subscription charge.

Look in to Avast, one of the best virus scanners
I have ever come across.
And Acronis True Image, instead of Norton Ghost.
For making an image of a computer

DONT BUY THIS SOFTWARE

Filled your C: partition, but still have plenty of room on D:? Want to run Linux and Windows on the same PC? You need PartitionMagic 8.

PartitionMagic is a lot more than a simple partitioning tool for hard drives these days. Not that changing your partitions without damaging the data in them is a particularly easy procedure, just that it might seem that way. In fact, PartitionMagic 8 can repartition your hard drive, set up multiple operating systems and even perform scheduled backups to protect your data.

The core program, which can be run from Windows or in DOS mode directly from a boot floppy, enables you to change the size of existing partitions, create new ones, merge two into one and so on. This is all achieved in a logical and straightforward way, using a new group of Wizards and with a number of safety checks to make sure you do what you intend.

Any of the changes you make, happen without any disturbance to the data you already have on your hard drive. The program can handle IDE and SCSI hard drives and in this new version adds external drives linked to USB2 or FireWire ports. You need quite a bit of memory in your PC to run the program--128 MB in Windows XP, for example.

BootMagic is bundled with Partition Magic 8 and is a well-featured boot manager which enables you to install several different operating systems on your PC and switch between them at start-up. You can include versions of Windows and other operating systems such as Linux available on the same PC, though the documentation is a little sketchy on exactly which operating systems it supports. --Simon Williams

If it's like the beta, it'll be good!!, 06 Sep 2008
If this product is anything like the beta version, this is going to be a vast improvement over the 2008 version. New features like Norton Insight, which allows you to scan files and compare them to trusted versions on the Norton servers means full system scans will be much quicker, due to these files being ignored if they haven't changed since Insight was run! Another great feature, which has appeared is the site adviser, similar to McAfee's, which can be downloaded as part of an add-on pack.

If this wasn't enough, liveupdate has been re-engineered to make it quicker, with updates more frequently, meaning you're always protected. The whole program itself is also much faster, which certainly will be popular with a lot of customers!

So is it all good then? Well if there is a downside to this review, I haven't seen it yet!

EDIT: Good news! It's just as good, and customers with existing subscriptions can upgrade free from the Symantec US site! (Which is what I did, with no problems!)

Would never touch a Symantec Product Again, 18 Jul 2008
The product is an absolute joke. And the Technical Support / Customer Service at Symantec is even worse.

1.) Upon Starting the PC I am greeted with multiple pop-ups - Virus Definitions Out of Date and Virus Scan Out of Date etc etc. On entering the software everything is ok.....
2.) The system seems to hang on the "one button check up" during the Norton Cleanup scan and then after 30 minutes will find files to clean up. Example found 763 then cleaned. Immediately ran again and found 1091, then cleaned (again). Immediately ran again and found 2111.
3.) Have used Symantec Chat on 4 occasions and each time they tell me that it is sorted. When I start the computer again, the problems start again.

On the 4th occasion i spent over 1 hour being passed from person to person, each as seemingly useless as the other.

I would never consider using this again even if backed into a corner and threatened with extreme torture.

Hope this helps....

PS. I run a very new and highly specced PC with Vista (which is also fraught with problems) (however Symantec do assure us that the software is fully compatible with VISTA....

Norton Internet Security 2008 Plus SystemWorks Basic Edition Bundle Pack, 1 User Edition (PC)

THE BUSINESS Will do me nicely THANKYOU., 25 Apr 2008
Originally Symantec allowed me to download 2008 free when i was using 2007 on Windows XP and i liked what i saw.

The new programme takes complete control of your computer to such an extent that to some it may be overpowering but along with McAfee,Norton is one of the best sellers in Virus Software.

If you are accustomed to using 2007 then you will certainly like 2008 as it is set out logically similarly to 2007.

Norton 2008 looks in certain ways very similar to the previous 2007 and operates in a very similar way but the entire programme has been vastly improved appearence wise and there are fewer boxes to tick but the new software automatically asks you do you want to run Live Update or allow this programme to run.

Some people will find the intrusion of all these boxes opening up every now and then annoying but the information these boxes ask really simplifies the security of your internet browsing.

I have only one complaint about 2008 and that is its the only operating system for Windows Vista.

Previously i had been happily using an almost new 2007 Norton on Xp with still over two hundered days of subscription to go but my Xp became sluggish and tempremental so wisely or foolishly i do not know i formatted my entire computers Hard Drive and installed Vista Premium.

Vista is a dream to use when you get the hang of it and the Aero interface is really usefull.There are so many background enhancements for the overall performance and appearence of Vista that im pleased i took the plunge but come on Symantec allow 2007 to work on it aswell.

Having visited my local branch of Staples recently i noticed they were selling 2008 for a very decent £24.95 including a free Systems Doctor disc aswell.

This disc was intended for the future when my 2007 subscription expired but lo and behold 2007 is only compatible with Xp and willnot work on Vista so thankfully i had a new 2008 disc waiting and im very pleased with the goods so far.

IF YOU ARE USING 2007 YOU WILL CERTAINLY ENJOY THE PLEASURES OF USING 2008.

Norten, 12 Apr 2008
I have used norton for the past 4 years. I think this securty is the best.

DO not buy Norton its rubbish, 01 Oct 2008
I've actually owned a lot of Norton stuff, and my god do they slow down your computer to a snails pace.

It gets in everywhere and screws everything up.

If you want a decent Internet Security package, check out Kaspersky, you can download it from their site - much much better.

Norton is rubbish.

Download It from the Norton US site for far less EOM, 19 Jul 2008
Paying UK full price for Norton products is a mug's game - just dowload it from their US site.

Does the job fine, 21 Jun 2008
I use Norton 2008 and it does the job fine. Old versions of Norton had a reputation for being a bit slow but 2008 seems pretty good - and faster than my old AVG. I haven't used Ghost so can't comment on that part.

DONT BUY, 16 Jun 2008

Norton is one of the worst viurs protection software, and its has a subscription charge.

Look in to Avast, one of the best virus scanners
I have ever come across.
And Acronis True Image, instead of Norton Ghost.
For making an image of a computer

DONT BUY THIS SOFTWARE

Great time saver!, 19 May 2008
There are a lot of partition tools out there and although I was tempted to go the DIY route for free, I am glad I didn't as there was a lot more to it than I thought. Fortunately Partition Magic took me through the steps required and gave me the tools required to do a successful partition expansion.

The only reason I didn't rate it the full five stars is that the Emergency Disk Recovery tool that comes with it insists on backing up to diskettes - but my machine doesn't have a floppy disk drive and wouldn't recognise the USB pen I tried - definately a case for an update there!

Otherwise a solid and easy to use program - well worth the money for the time it saved me and avoiding the grief I could of caused myself!


Good but not a problem solver, 01 May 2008
I have used this on XP for long and it works ok as long as you want to do basic stuff and your Master Boot Record is healthy. But Partition Magic seems totally incompatible with Acronis TrueImage (a backup solution) as well as Linux.

I have been incredibly frustrated with Partition Magic for not being able to work with Acronis partitions and Linux partitions. It simply refuses to start and returns an error (113). Symantec support is semi-polite but cuts you off, quoting "you have a hard drive error".

My advice - be cautious before buying.

Totally useless, 08 Sep 2007
I've been battling with this so-called product for 3 nights. I diligently read the manual before starting. All I wanted was two separate partitions, each with their own version of Windows, one for my children's games and one for my freelance work. I have nearly 30 years IT experience and all I can say is that this product sucks! I'm never using it again and would recommend you avoid it at all costs. I'm now rebuilding the PC software from the ground up and looking for another product. Also, their web site is extremely slow - I guess probably due to the number of people looking for help when things go wrong. Why do I have to give this one star? Come on Amazon, allow us to award no stars!

Don't buy this!! Buy Acronis Disk Director instead, 21 Jun 2007
Partition Magic is rubbish. I tried using it to partition a USB stick which I installed drivers for so that XP thinks it's a hard drive. Any little change I made caused Partition Magic to decide to reboot my system - completely retarded. It always complained about problems with the partition table and when it "fixed" them, made a bootable USB become unbootable! It is spastic! Don't buy it! Unless you hate yourself and like to make life a misery.

Unfortunately in order to post this review I had to give it one star, it deserves -5

Acronis Disk Director is far superior.
It makes tons of changes, hides/unhides partitions, formats, converts filesystems, makes partitions active or not active, has a much nicer GUI, is easier to use, doesn't cause loss of data, much, much better product in every way!!!

stay away at all costs, 23 Dec 2006
I got a new computer, high spec and everything. Wanted to do a partitio, and i was already familiar with the existence of partition magic, so I got it and the only magic it did is that it ruined everything. it stopped in the middle of partitioning, windows would not restart, recovery could not work, nothing. So I had to reformat and lost all the data. what is worth is that it does not support hard drives bigger than 90 giga, and I had to know that from an IT expert, and that was not mentioned either on the box, or on the website. It is overpriced as well. I had bought Acronis's partition manager, which is fantastic, for a fraction of the price, and it works a lot better.
Keep your pc safe, and stay away from this software.

Protects your computer with advanced backup and recovery.

• Full system backup (disk image) ? Backs up everything on a hard drive or partition
• File and folder back up ? Choose only the specific files and folders you want to back up rather than sav

If it's like the beta, it'll be good!!, 06 Sep 2008
If this product is anything like the beta version, this is going to be a vast improvement over the 2008 version. New features like Norton Insight, which allows you to scan files and compare them to trusted versions on the Norton servers means full system scans will be much quicker, due to these files being ignored if they haven't changed since Insight was run! Another great feature, which has appeared is the site adviser, similar to McAfee's, which can be downloaded as part of an add-on pack.

If this wasn't enough, liveupdate has been re-engineered to make it quicker, with updates more frequently, meaning you're always protected. The whole program itself is also much faster, which certainly will be popular with a lot of customers!

So is it all good then? Well if there is a downside to this review, I haven't seen it yet!

EDIT: Good news! It's just as good, and customers with existing subscriptions can upgrade free from the Symantec US site! (Which is what I did, with no problems!)

Would never touch a Symantec Product Again, 18 Jul 2008
The product is an absolute joke. And the Technical Support / Customer Service at Symantec is even worse.

1.) Upon Starting the PC I am greeted with multiple pop-ups - Virus Definitions Out of Date and Virus Scan Out of Date etc etc. On entering the software everything is ok.....
2.) The system seems to hang on the "one button check up" during the Norton Cleanup scan and then after 30 minutes will find files to clean up. Example found 763 then cleaned. Immediately ran again and found 1091, then cleaned (again). Immediately ran again and found 2111.
3.) Have used Symantec Chat on 4 occasions and each time they tell me that it is sorted. When I start the computer again, the problems start again.

On the 4th occasion i spent over 1 hour being passed from person to person, each as seemingly useless as the other.

I would never consider using this again even if backed into a corner and threatened with extreme torture.

Hope this helps....

PS. I run a very new and highly specced PC with Vista (which is also fraught with problems) (however Symantec do assure us that the software is fully compatible with VISTA....

Norton Internet Security 2008 Plus SystemWorks Basic Edition Bundle Pack, 1 User Edition (PC)

THE BUSINESS Will do me nicely THANKYOU., 25 Apr 2008
Originally Symantec allowed me to download 2008 free when i was using 2007 on Windows XP and i liked what i saw.

The new programme takes complete control of your computer to such an extent that to some it may be overpowering but along with McAfee,Norton is one of the best sellers in Virus Software.

If you are accustomed to using 2007 then you will certainly like 2008 as it is set out logically similarly to 2007.

Norton 2008 looks in certain ways very similar to the previous 2007 and operates in a very similar way but the entire programme has been vastly improved appearence wise and there are fewer boxes to tick but the new software automatically asks you do you want to run Live Update or allow this programme to run.

Some people will find the intrusion of all these boxes opening up every now and then annoying but the information these boxes ask really simplifies the security of your internet browsing.

I have only one complaint about 2008 and that is its the only operating system for Windows Vista.

Previously i had been happily using an almost new 2007 Norton on Xp with still over two hundered days of subscription to go but my Xp became sluggish and tempremental so wisely or foolishly i do not know i formatted my entire computers Hard Drive and installed Vista Premium.

Vista is a dream to use when you get the hang of it and the Aero interface is really usefull.There are so many background enhancements for the overall performance and appearence of Vista that im pleased i took the plunge but come on Symantec allow 2007 to work on it aswell.

Having visited my local branch of Staples recently i noticed they were selling 2008 for a very decent £24.95 including a free Systems Doctor disc aswell.

This disc was intended for the future when my 2007 subscription expired but lo and behold 2007 is only compatible with Xp and willnot work on Vista so thankfully i had a new 2008 disc waiting and im very pleased with the goods so far.

IF YOU ARE USING 2007 YOU WILL CERTAINLY ENJOY THE PLEASURES OF USING 2008.

Norten, 12 Apr 2008
I have used norton for the past 4 years. I think this securty is the best.

DO not buy Norton its rubbish, 01 Oct 2008
I've actually owned a lot of Norton stuff, and my god do they slow down your computer to a snails pace.

It gets in everywhere and screws everything up.

If you want a decent Internet Security package, check out Kaspersky, you can download it from their site - much much better.

Norton is rubbish.

Download It from the Norton US site for far less EOM, 19 Jul 2008
Paying UK full price for Norton products is a mug's game - just dowload it from their US site.

Does the job fine, 21 Jun 2008
I use Norton 2008 and it does the job fine. Old versions of Norton had a reputation for being a bit slow but 2008 seems pretty good - and faster than my old AVG. I haven't used Ghost so can't comment on that part.

DONT BUY, 16 Jun 2008

Norton is one of the worst viurs protection software, and its has a subscription charge.

Look in to Avast, one of the best virus scanners
I have ever come across.
And Acronis True Image, instead of Norton Ghost.
For making an image of a computer

DONT BUY THIS SOFTWARE

Great time saver!, 19 May 2008
There are a lot of partition tools out there and although I was tempted to go the DIY route for free, I am glad I didn't as there was a lot more to it than I thought. Fortunately Partition Magic took me through the steps required and gave me the tools required to do a successful partition expansion.

The only reason I didn't rate it the full five stars is that the Emergency Disk Recovery tool that comes with it insists on backing up to diskettes - but my machine doesn't have a floppy disk drive and wouldn't recognise the USB pen I tried - definately a case for an update there!

Otherwise a solid and easy to use program - well worth the money for the time it saved me and avoiding the grief I could of caused myself!


Good but not a problem solver, 01 May 2008
I have used this on XP for long and it works ok as long as you want to do basic stuff and your Master Boot Record is healthy. But Partition Magic seems totally incompatible with Acronis TrueImage (a backup solution) as well as Linux.

I have been incredibly frustrated with Partition Magic for not being able to work with Acronis partitions and Linux partitions. It simply refuses to start and returns an error (113). Symantec support is semi-polite but cuts you off, quoting "you have a hard drive error".

My advice - be cautious before buying.

Totally useless, 08 Sep 2007
I've been battling with this so-called product for 3 nights. I diligently read the manual before starting. All I wanted was two separate partitions, each with their own version of Windows, one for my children's games and one for my freelance work. I have nearly 30 years IT experience and all I can say is that this product sucks! I'm never using it again and would recommend you avoid it at all costs. I'm now rebuilding the PC software from the ground up and looking for another product. Also, their web site is extremely slow - I guess probably due to the number of people looking for help when things go wrong. Why do I have to give this one star? Come on Amazon, allow us to award no stars!

Don't buy this!! Buy Acronis Disk Director instead, 21 Jun 2007
Partition Magic is rubbish. I tried using it to partition a USB stick which I installed drivers for so that XP thinks it's a hard drive. Any little change I made caused Partition Magic to decide to reboot my system - completely retarded. It always complained about problems with the partition table and when it "fixed" them, made a bootable USB become unbootable! It is spastic! Don't buy it! Unless you hate yourself and like to make life a misery.

Unfortunately in order to post this review I had to give it one star, it deserves -5

Acronis Disk Director is far superior.
It makes tons of changes, hides/unhides partitions, formats, converts filesystems, makes partitions active or not active, has a much nicer GUI, is easier to use, doesn't cause loss of data, much, much better product in every way!!!

stay away at all costs, 23 Dec 2006
I got a new computer, high spec and everything. Wanted to do a partitio, and i was already familiar with the existence of partition magic, so I got it and the only magic it did is that it ruined everything. it stopped in the middle of partitioning, windows would not restart, recovery could not work, nothing. So I had to reformat and lost all the data. what is worth is that it does not support hard drives bigger than 90 giga, and I had to know that from an IT expert, and that was not mentioned either on the box, or on the website. It is overpriced as well. I had bought Acronis's partition manager, which is fantastic, for a fraction of the price, and it works a lot better.
Keep your pc safe, and stay away from this software.

Does what it says if you can work out how to do it, 05 Mar 2008
I have been using Ghost 10 for quite a while. Ghost 10 didn't have the most intuitive of intuitive of interfaces but I quickly got used to its quirks. I had read that the new program had made this all a lot clearer and on first sight it is. It is much larger with nice pie charts and graphics showing you information about what backups you have. After struggling with it for hours, I decided it was far less intuitive or just the same but involving more operations. If you want to delete recovery points, what do you want - tasks or tools? What these people never seem to do when designing these things is to ask their secretaries or girl friends to sit down and try and work it out. They might get some useful suggestions.

The additional feature not found in Ghost 10 is the file or folder backup. This is backed up separately on your external hard drive and is not incorporated in the main backup. You can select file types which will backup all files of that type. Then there is My Documents which will back up this (minus the files in My Pictures and My Music as the 'folders' for these are, in fact, short cuts not real folders). Then you can define file(s) or folder(s) which change rapidly and you need to back up frequently.

The main problem with this section of the program is viewing the folders or files you have backed up. You have to enter a file name in a search box to view the backed up files. I never know the names of the files I'm working with, especially ones with names like xcve6755.jpg. There is an 'advanced' search but this depends on date, file size, etc. I have eventually brought up what I want to I am new sure how I did it! Then you can check if it is backed up properly. The same applies to restore. What is needed is a facility to view all the files and folders of each defined backup so you can explore and then choose.

I do not often have to resort to the Help menu with most programs but you will with this. The printed manual you get with the box is a pale shadow of its predecessor, on economic grounds no doubt. The manual tells you about installation, creating a Recovery Disc etc but virtually nothing about day to day operations. This is all found on the comprehensive help that comes with the program. If your computer dies on you, however, these will not be available to you. If you have access to another computer, look in the Ghost 12 folder in C:/Programs and copy the help file and store it on a memory stick. Alternatively, print out the help pages (or copy and paste to a Word document (over 100 sides). It is essential to know how to boot the computer with the Recovery Disk to rescue it and you will need step by step guidance unless you are very computer literate, so at least print this out as it is not in the manual.

The Help pages are generally good but are too cursory at times and, it seems, when you most need them. The index and search facilities are often unhelpful, bringing up long lists of topics leaving you unsure as to which to look up. I have found my Word document version better as I can search by single words or phrases and bring the text up.

A word about the Recovery Disc. You use this to boot the computer into basic Windows to enable you to overwrite and restore the whole of your hard disk. When you install, you can run a scan from the product CD to validate drivers. It will tell you if any drivers are missing from the CD (not the computer)to enable recovery to run. After installation, you make your own disk by burning a recovery CD which Ghost ensures includes copies of these drivers. Be sure to test the disk to make sure it works. This procedure is NOT described in the manual.

This is a good program but let down by the time needed to learn where things are. Better sub-menus would solve a lot of this. These are mainly problems for the new user and time will resolve them. There may be other products which do a similar job which are easier to use but Ghost 10 has restored my computer on a couple of occasions. The alternative would have been to reinstall Windows and every application, one by one, and then the data - a good day's work if you are lucky and a year off your life. Don't underestimate the value of Ghost 12 - it will restore your operating system, the registry, your applications and your data in an hour or two while you have a cup of tea.

Symantec buys company and ruins product, 01 Feb 2008
Absolute rubbish. There should be a minus stars rating.
Drive Image was a fine product, Symantec indulged in their usual practice of eliminating competition, and ruined a good product. If you have Vista you are better off using the tools that already exist in it, or upgrading from the Home Edition to get them. Do not even think of using Ghost if you have RAID.

Absolute rubbish, 30 Nov 2007
Pretty interface and all looks very professional but simply cannot be relied on, and doesnt work anyway! Wanted to clone (copy disk) my boot hard disk (XP) to another clean drive with lots of space, formatted and error free. C:\ drive was around 10gb and I was sending it to D:\ drive which was 20gb. It got to the end of the copy routine, about 30 minutes, having copied around 8gb of 10gb and said it *failed* with the error "too few clusters". I checked the website and it suggested running chkdsk /f which I did, and even tried chkdsk /r with no errors. I tried three times and failed every one. Rubbish software. Rubbish support. Rubbish company. Now dumping it and looking elsewhere.

Solid and reliable, but may not be worth upgrading from Ghost 10, 15 Oct 2007
There a lot you can say about Symantec - much of it bad and some of it unrepeatable - but you can't argue with a piece of software that consistently does exactly what it claims to do. Unlike the utter disaster that was Acronis True Image 10 - whose popularity among magazine reviewers can only be based on none of them ever having actually used it - Ghost 10 competently got on with the job of backing up my system, and, once, just as competently restoring it after a disaster.

And now there's Ghost 12 - but although it has a number of new features over Ghost 10, some of them are going to be of pretty limited value to a home user with one or two personal machines. The remote management and LightsOut Restore features might be useful to network sysadmins but they're of no use to me. Similarly the integrated google desktop feature is probably useful to some people, somewhere, but I'm not one of them. It's a lot prettier than Ghost 10, though, with a new interface design and much nicer and more detailed menus. The ability to back up specific files, file-types and folders is a nice new feature, although individual items can already be selected and restored from within a complete disk image so it's not an essential one.

One thing that has been much improved in Ghost 12 is a feature that hopefully you'll never see. Ghost 10 took an incredibly (and nail-bitingly) long time to boot into the recovery environment from the CD. Ghost 12 is much faster and the recovery environment has undergone the same facelift as the user interface. Beware, though, of the broken new "feature" that claims to let you create a customised bootable recovery CD that includes system-specific drivers not included in the standard recovery CD. I ran this feature to test it out, and it identified about a half-dozen things it thought should be included in a customised CD. Some of them (the JMicron RAID driver my motherboard uses) seemed logical to include, while others (part of the Kaspersky antivirus engine) seemed a bit eccentric. Ghost repeatedly failed to burn this customised CD for no explicable reason, though it did let me create an iso image that I burned to a blank CD with Nero. This customised CD booted alright, but refused to identify any of the dozen or so backups I'd made on my external USB drives, and when I selected them manually it refused to open them for a restore. When I used the plain old uncustomised bootable CD that came with the box, it worked just fine, identified all my backups and opened them without a hitch.

Apart from the useless customisable recovery CD feature - which loses it points as I have this old-fashioned idea that advertised software features should work work out of the box - Ghost 12 is a good solid product that I use every day to create incremental images of my system and data partitions. If you don't already have a disk imager, Ghost 12 will be the one to get - ignore the noise about Acronis True Image. Ghost may cost more but in my experience it doesn't generate fatal errors or inexplicably corrupt its own backup archives. If you already have Ghost 10, though, then you probably won't gain much by upgrading unless you desperately need to be able to restore a system remotely.

PCANYWHERE HOST & REMOTE 12.1 EN

Symantec's Norton AntiVirus 10.0 for Macintosh is the world's mosttrusted antivirus solution for Macintosh systems. It removesviruses automatically cleans infected Internet and emaildownloads and defends against emerging threats. Now it's alsocompat

If it's like the beta, it'll be good!!, 06 Sep 2008
If this product is anything like the beta version, this is going to be a vast improvement over the 2008 version. New features like Norton Insight, which allows you to scan files and compare them to trusted versions on the Norton servers means full system scans will be much quicker, due to these files being ignored if they haven't changed since Insight was run! Another great feature, which has appeared is the site adviser, similar to McAfee's, which can be downloaded as part of an add-on pack.

If this wasn't enough, liveupdate has been re-engineered to make it quicker, with updates more frequently, meaning you're always protected. The whole program itself is also much faster, which certainly will be popular with a lot of customers!

So is it all good then? Well if there is a downside to this review, I haven't seen it yet!

EDIT: Good news! It's just as good, and customers with existing subscriptions can upgrade free from the Symantec US site! (Which is what I did, with no problems!)

Would never touch a Symantec Product Again, 18 Jul 2008
The product is an absolute joke. And the Technical Support / Customer Service at Symantec is even worse.

1.) Upon Starting the PC I am greeted with multiple pop-ups - Virus Definitions Out of Date and Virus Scan Out of Date etc etc. On entering the software everything is ok.....
2.) The system seems to hang on the "one button check up" during the Norton Cleanup scan and then after 30 minutes will find files to clean up. Example found 763 then cleaned. Immediately ran again and found 1091, then cleaned (again). Immediately ran again and found 2111.
3.) Have used Symantec Chat on 4 occasions and each time they tell me that it is sorted. When I start the computer again, the problems start again.

On the 4th occasion i spent over 1 hour being passed from person to person, each as seemingly useless as the other.

I would never consider using this again even if backed into a corner and threatened with extreme torture.

Hope this helps....

PS. I run a very new and highly specced PC with Vista (which is also fraught with problems) (however Symantec do assure us that the software is fully compatible with VISTA....

Norton Internet Security 2008 Plus SystemWorks Basic Edition Bundle Pack, 1 User Edition (PC)

THE BUSINESS Will do me nicely THANKYOU., 25 Apr 2008
Originally Symantec allowed me to download 2008 free when i was using 2007 on Windows XP and i liked what i saw.

The new programme takes complete control of your computer to such an extent that to some it may be overpowering but along with McAfee,Norton is one of the best sellers in Virus Software.

If you are accustomed to using 2007 then you will certainly like 2008 as it is set out logically similarly to 2007.

Norton 2008 looks in certain ways very similar to the previous 2007 and operates in a very similar way but the entire programme has been vastly improved appearence wise and there are fewer boxes to tick but the new software automatically asks you do you want to run Live Update or allow this programme to run.

Some people will find the intrusion of all these boxes opening up every now and then annoying but the information these boxes ask really simplifies the security of your internet browsing.

I have only one complaint about 2008 and that is its the only operating system for Windows Vista.

Previously i had been happily using an almost new 2007 Norton on Xp with still over two hundered days of subscription to go but my Xp became sluggish and tempremental so wisely or foolishly i do not know i formatted my entire computers Hard Drive and installed Vista Premium.

Vista is a dream to use when you get the hang of it and the Aero interface is really usefull.There are so many background enhancements for the overall performance and appearence of Vista that im pleased i took the plunge but come on Symantec allow 2007 to work on it aswell.

Having visited my local branch of Staples recently i noticed they were selling 2008 for a very decent £24.95 including a free Systems Doctor disc aswell.

This disc was intended for the future when my 2007 subscription expired but lo and behold 2007 is only compatible with Xp and willnot work on Vista so thankfully i had a new 2008 disc waiting and im very pleased with the goods so far.

IF YOU ARE USING 2007 YOU WILL CERTAINLY ENJOY THE PLEASURES OF USING 2008.

Norten, 12 Apr 2008
I have used norton for the past 4 years. I think this securty is the best.

DO not buy Norton its rubbish, 01 Oct 2008
I've actually owned a lot of Norton stuff, and my god do they slow down your computer to a snails pace.

It gets in everywhere and screws everything up.

If you want a decent Internet Security package, check out Kaspersky, you can download it from their site - much much better.

Norton is rubbish.

Download It from the Norton US site for far less EOM, 19 Jul 2008
Paying UK full price for Norton products is a mug's game - just dowload it from their US site.

Does the job fine, 21 Jun 2008
I use Norton 2008 and it does the job fine. Old versions of Norton had a reputation for being a bit slow but 2008 seems pretty good - and faster than my old AVG. I haven't used Ghost so can't comment on that part.

DONT BUY, 16 Jun 2008

Norton is one of the worst viurs protection software, and its has a subscription charge.

Look in to Avast, one of the best virus scanners
I have ever come across.
And Acronis True Image, instead of Norton Ghost.
For making an image of a computer

DONT BUY THIS SOFTWARE

Great time saver!, 19 May 2008
There are a lot of partition tools out there and although I was tempted to go the DIY route for free, I am glad I didn't as there was a lot more to it than I thought. Fortunately Partition Magic took me through the steps required and gave me the tools required to do a successful partition expansion.

The only reason I didn't rate it the full five stars is that the Emergency Disk Recovery tool that comes with it insists on backing up to diskettes - but my machine doesn't have a floppy disk drive and wouldn't recognise the USB pen I tried - definately a case for an update there!

Otherwise a solid and easy to use program - well worth the money for the time it saved me and avoiding the grief I could of caused myself!


Good but not a problem solver, 01 May 2008
I have used this on XP for long and it works ok as long as you want to do basic stuff and your Master Boot Record is healthy. But Partition Magic seems totally incompatible with Acronis TrueImage (a backup solution) as well as Linux.

I have been incredibly frustrated with Partition Magic for not being able to work with Acronis partitions and Linux partitions. It simply refuses to start and returns an error (113). Symantec support is semi-polite but cuts you off, quoting "you have a hard drive error".

My advice - be cautious before buying.

Totally useless, 08 Sep 2007
I've been battling with this so-called product for 3 nights. I diligently read the manual before starting. All I wanted was two separate partitions, each with their own version of Windows, one for my children's games and one for my freelance work. I have nearly 30 years IT experience and all I can say is that this product sucks! I'm never using it again and would recommend you avoid it at all costs. I'm now rebuilding the PC software from the ground up and looking for another product. Also, their web site is extremely slow - I guess probably due to the number of people looking for help when things go wrong. Why do I have to give this one star? Come on Amazon, allow us to award no stars!

Don't buy this!! Buy Acronis Disk Director instead, 21 Jun 2007
Partition Magic is rubbish. I tried using it to partition a USB stick which I installed drivers for so that XP thinks it's a hard drive. Any little change I made caused Partition Magic to decide to reboot my system - completely retarded. It always complained about problems with the partition table and when it "fixed" them, made a bootable USB become unbootable! It is spastic! Don't buy it! Unless you hate yourself and like to make life a misery.

Unfortunately in order to post this review I had to give it one star, it deserves -5

Acronis Disk Director is far superior.
It makes tons of changes, hides/unhides partitions, formats, converts filesystems, makes partitions active or not active, has a much nicer GUI, is easier to use, doesn't cause loss of data, much, much better product in every way!!!

stay away at all costs, 23 Dec 2006
I got a new computer, high spec and everything. Wanted to do a partitio, and i was already familiar with the existence of partition magic, so I got it and the only magic it did is that it ruined everything. it stopped in the middle of partitioning, windows would not restart, recovery could not work, nothing. So I had to reformat and lost all the data. what is worth is that it does not support hard drives bigger than 90 giga, and I had to know that from an IT expert, and that was not mentioned either on the box, or on the website. It is overpriced as well. I had bought Acronis's partition manager, which is fantastic, for a fraction of the price, and it works a lot better.
Keep your pc safe, and stay away from this software.

Does what it says if you can work out how to do it, 05 Mar 2008
I have been using Ghost 10 for quite a while. Ghost 10 didn't have the most intuitive of intuitive of interfaces but I quickly got used to its quirks. I had read that the new program had made this all a lot clearer and on first sight it is. It is much larger with nice pie charts and graphics showing you information about what backups you have. After struggling with it for hours, I decided it was far less intuitive or just the same but involving more operations. If you want to delete recovery points, what do you want - tasks or tools? What these people never seem to do when designing these things is to ask their secretaries or girl friends to sit down and try and work it out. They might get some useful suggestions.

The additional feature not found in Ghost 10 is the file or folder backup. This is backed up separately on your external hard drive and is not incorporated in the main backup. You can select file types which will backup all files of that type. Then there is My Documents which will back up this (minus the files in My Pictures and My Music as the 'folders' for these are, in fact, short cuts not real folders). Then you can define file(s) or folder(s) which change rapidly and you need to back up frequently.

The main problem with this section of the program is viewing the folders or files you have backed up. You have to enter a file name in a search box to view the backed up files. I never know the names of the files I'm working with, especially ones with names like xcve6755.jpg. There is an 'advanced' search but this depends on date, file size, etc. I have eventually brought up what I want to I am new sure how I did it! Then you can check if it is backed up properly. The same applies to restore. What is needed is a facility to view all the files and folders of each defined backup so you can explore and then choose.

I do not often have to resort to the Help menu with most programs but you will with this. The printed manual you get with the box is a pale shadow of its predecessor, on economic grounds no doubt. The manual tells you about installation, creating a Recovery Disc etc but virtually nothing about day to day operations. This is all found on the comprehensive help that comes with the program. If your computer dies on you, however, these will not be available to you. If you have access to another computer, look in the Ghost 12 folder in C:/Programs and copy the help file and store it on a memory stick. Alternatively, print out the help pages (or copy and paste to a Word document (over 100 sides). It is essential to know how to boot the computer with the Recovery Disk to rescue it and you will need step by step guidance unless you are very computer literate, so at least print this out as it is not in the manual.

The Help pages are generally good but are too cursory at times and, it seems, when you most need them. The index and search facilities are often unhelpful, bringing up long lists of topics leaving you unsure as to which to look up. I have found my Word document version better as I can search by single words or phrases and bring the text up.

A word about the Recovery Disc. You use this to boot the computer into basic Windows to enable you to overwrite and restore the whole of your hard disk. When you install, you can run a scan from the product CD to validate drivers. It will tell you if any drivers are missing from the CD (not the computer)to enable recovery to run. After installation, you make your own disk by burning a recovery CD which Ghost ensures includes copies of these drivers. Be sure to test the disk to make sure it works. This procedure is NOT described in the manual.

This is a good program but let down by the time needed to learn where things are. Better sub-menus would solve a lot of this. These are mainly problems for the new user and time will resolve them. There may be other products which do a similar job which are easier to use but Ghost 10 has restored my computer on a couple of occasions. The alternative would have been to reinstall Windows and every application, one by one, and then the data - a good day's work if you are lucky and a year off your life. Don't underestimate the value of Ghost 12 - it will restore your operating system, the registry, your applications and your data in an hour or two while you have a cup of tea.

Symantec buys company and ruins product, 01 Feb 2008
Absolute rubbish. There should be a minus stars rating.
Drive Image was a fine product, Symantec indulged in their usual practice of eliminating competition, and ruined a good product. If you have Vista you are better off using the tools that already exist in it, or upgrading from the Home Edition to get them. Do not even think of using Ghost if you have RAID.

Absolute rubbish, 30 Nov 2007
Pretty interface and all looks very professional but simply cannot be relied on, and doesnt work anyway! Wanted to clone (copy disk) my boot hard disk (XP) to another clean drive with lots of space, formatted and error free. C:\ drive was around 10gb and I was sending it to D:\ drive which was 20gb. It got to the end of the copy routine, about 30 minutes, having copied around 8gb of 10gb and said it *failed* with the error "too few clusters". I checked the website and it suggested running chkdsk /f which I did, and even tried chkdsk /r with no errors. I tried three times and failed every one. Rubbish software. Rubbish support. Rubbish company. Now dumping it and looking elsewhere.

Solid and reliable, but may not be worth upgrading from Ghost 10, 15 Oct 2007
There a lot you can say about Symantec - much of it bad and some of it unrepeatable - but you can't argue with a piece of software that consistently does exactly what it claims to do. Unlike the utter disaster that was Acronis True Image 10 - whose popularity among magazine reviewers can only be based on none of them ever having actually used it - Ghost 10 competently got on with the job of backing up my system, and, once, just as competently restoring it after a disaster.

And now there's Ghost 12 - but although it has a number of new features over Ghost 10, some of them are going to be of pretty limited value to a home user with one or two personal machines. The remote management and LightsOut Restore features might be useful to network sysadmins but they're of no use to me. Similarly the integrated google desktop feature is probably useful to some people, somewhere, but I'm not one of them. It's a lot prettier than Ghost 10, though, with a new interface design and much nicer and more detailed menus. The ability to back up specific files, file-types and folders is a nice new feature, although individual items can already be selected and restored from within a complete disk image so it's not an essential one.

One thing that has been much improved in Ghost 12 is a feature that hopefully you'll never see. Ghost 10 took an incredibly (and nail-bitingly) long time to boot into the recovery environment from the CD. Ghost 12 is much faster and the recovery environment has undergone the same facelift as the user interface. Beware, though, of the broken new "feature" that claims to let you create a customised bootable recovery CD that includes system-specific drivers not included in the standard recovery CD. I ran this feature to test it out, and it identified about a half-dozen things it thought should be included in a customised CD. Some of them (the JMicron RAID driver my motherboard uses) seemed logical to include, while others (part of the Kaspersky antivirus engine) seemed a bit eccentric. Ghost repeatedly failed to burn this customised CD for no explicable reason, though it did let me create an iso image that I burned to a blank CD with Nero. This customised CD booted alright, but refused to identify any of the dozen or so backups I'd made on my external USB drives, and when I selected them manually it refused to open them for a restore. When I used the plain old uncustomised bootable CD that came with the box, it worked just fine, identified all my backups and opened them without a hitch.

Apart from the useless customisable recovery CD feature - which loses it points as I have this old-fashioned idea that advertised software features should work work out of the box - Ghost 12 is a good solid product that I use every day to create incremental images of my system and data partitions. If you don't already have a disk imager, Ghost 12 will be the one to get - ignore the noise about Acronis True Image. Ghost may cost more but in my experience it doesn't generate fatal errors or inexplicably corrupt its own backup archives. If you already have Ghost 10, though, then you probably won't gain much by upgrading unless you desperately need to be able to restore a system remotely.


Poor, 26 Jul 2006
Disappointing release this. It's not possible to exclude specific unscannable files or folders. The code runs on Intel Macs, but only in PowerPC emulation - so it's slow. Also, it hangs when you scan a well-known Nessus test file that's been around for a year or two. Finally their customer support web site seems buggy (the confirmation emails are slow to arrive, don't summarize the info you submitted, and don't quote the case number in the subject line). All in all, pretty incompetent. Avoid!

Intego VirusBarrier 4 seems to get good reviews, and users say good things about it, so may be worth a try.
http://www.macworld.com/2006/05/reviews/virusbarrierx4/index.php

Norton Antivirus 10 MAC, 02 Apr 2006
This item is fine. It sits in the background unoticed (no work interuptions), which is great.

I've recently upgraded from version 9 as I moved upto OS 10.4 Tiger. Have had no problems at all. I use my computer on a lenghty day to day basis and needed this product for peice of mind.

Norton Antivirus 10 will not disappiont. Any designer will know that.

Avoid, 12 Sep 2005
Really disappointed with this software. Used Virex when it was part of the dot Mac package and this is terrible by comparison; really slow and clunky. The update feature for new virus definitions has never worked for me and it seems impossible to get support for Mac. The "Mac expert" is always busy and despite promises to call back never does. Poor effort all round.

Main Features:Automatically removes viruses and spyware while stopping hackers and online intrusionsCollaborative security elements including client firewall, intrusion protection, and antivirus/antispyware deliver enhanced protection against known and emerging threatsScans POP3 email messages and attachmentsProtects itself against malicious code that tries to disable antivirus softwareRepairs changes made by viruses and spywareOffers centralised installation, configuration, management, and reportingPermits...

Filled your C: partition, but still have plenty of room on D:? Want to run Linux and Windows on the same PC? You need PartitionMagic 8

PartitionMagic is a lot more than a simple partitioning tool for hard drives these days. Not that changing your partitions without damaging the data in them is a particularly easy procedure, just that it might seem that way. In fact, PartitionMagic 8 can repartition your hard drive, set up multiple operating systems and even perform scheduled backups to protect your data.

The core program, which can be run from Windows or in DOS mode directly from a boot floppy, enables you to change the size of existing partitions, create new ones, merge two into one and so on. This is all achieved in a logical and straightforward way, using a new group of Wizards and with a number of safety checks to make sure you do what you intend.

Any of the changes you make, happen without any disturbance to the data you already have on your hard drive. The program can handle IDE and SCSI hard drives and in this new version adds external drives linked to USB2 or FireWire ports. You need quite a bit of memory in your PC to run the program--128 MB in Windows XP, for example.

BootMagic is bundled with Partition Magic 8 and is a well-featured boot manager which enables you to install several different operating systems on your PC and switch between them at start-up. You can include versions of Windows and other operating systems such as Linux available on the same PC, though the documentation is a little sketchy on exactly which operating systems it supports. --Simon Williams

If it's like the beta, it'll be good!!, 06 Sep 2008
If this product is anything like the beta version, this is going to be a vast improvement over the 2008 version. New features like Norton Insight, which allows you to scan files and compare them to trusted versions on the Norton servers means full system scans will be much quicker, due to these files being ignored if they haven't changed since Insight was run! Another great feature, which has appeared is the site adviser, similar to McAfee's, which can be downloaded as part of an add-on pack.

If this wasn't enough, liveupdate has been re-engineered to make it quicker, with updates more frequently, meaning you're always protected. The whole program itself is also much faster, which certainly will be popular with a lot of customers!

So is it all good then? Well if there is a downside to this review, I haven't seen it yet!

EDIT: Good news! It's just as good, and customers with existing subscriptions can upgrade free from the Symantec US site! (Which is what I did, with no problems!)

Would never touch a Symantec Product Again, 18 Jul 2008
The product is an absolute joke. And the Technical Support / Customer Service at Symantec is even worse.

1.) Upon Starting the PC I am greeted with multiple pop-ups - Virus Definitions Out of Date and Virus Scan Out of Date etc etc. On entering the software everything is ok.....
2.) The system seems to hang on the "one button check up" during the Norton Cleanup scan and then after 30 minutes will find files to clean up. Example found 763 then cleaned. Immediately ran again and found 1091, then cleaned (again). Immediately ran again and found 2111.
3.) Have used Symantec Chat on 4 occasions and each time they tell me that it is sorted. When I start the computer again, the problems start again.

On the 4th occasion i spent over 1 hour being passed from person to person, each as seemingly useless as the other.

I would never consider using this again even if backed into a corner and threatened with extreme torture.

Hope this helps....

PS. I run a very new and highly specced PC with Vista (which is also fraught with problems) (however Symantec do assure us that the software is fully compatible with VISTA....

Norton Internet Security 2008 Plus SystemWorks Basic Edition Bundle Pack, 1 User Edition (PC)

THE BUSINESS Will do me nicely THANKYOU., 25 Apr 2008
Originally Symantec allowed me to download 2008 free when i was using 2007 on Windows XP and i liked what i saw.

The new programme takes complete control of your computer to such an extent that to some it may be overpowering but along with McAfee,Norton is one of the best sellers in Virus Software.

If you are accustomed to using 2007 then you will certainly like 2008 as it is set out logically similarly to 2007.

Norton 2008 looks in certain ways very similar to the previous 2007 and operates in a very similar way but the entire programme has been vastly improved appearence wise and there are fewer boxes to tick but the new software automatically asks you do you want to run Live Update or allow this programme to run.

Some people will find the intrusion of all these boxes opening up every now and then annoying but the information these boxes ask really simplifies the security of your internet browsing.

I have only one complaint about 2008 and that is its the only operating system for Windows Vista.

Previously i had been happily using an almost new 2007 Norton on Xp with still over two hundered days of subscription to go but my Xp became sluggish and tempremental so wisely or foolishly i do not know i formatted my entire computers Hard Drive and installed Vista Premium.

Vista is a dream to use when you get the hang of it and the Aero interface is really usefull.There are so many background enhancements for the overall performance and appearence of Vista that im pleased i took the plunge but come on Symantec allow 2007 to work on it aswell.

Having visited my local branch of Staples recently i noticed they were selling 2008 for a very decent £24.95 including a free Systems Doctor disc aswell.

This disc was intended for the future when my 2007 subscription expired but lo and behold 2007 is only compatible with Xp and willnot work on Vista so thankfully i had a new 2008 disc waiting and im very pleased with the goods so far.

IF YOU ARE USING 2007 YOU WILL CERTAINLY ENJOY THE PLEASURES OF USING 2008.

Norten, 12 Apr 2008
I have used norton for the past 4 years. I think this securty is the best.

DO not buy Norton its rubbish, 01 Oct 2008
I've actually owned a lot of Norton stuff, and my god do they slow down your computer to a snails pace.

It gets in everywhere and screws everything up.

If you want a decent Internet Security package, check out Kaspersky, you can download it from their site - much much better.

Norton is rubbish.

Download It from the Norton US site for far less EOM, 19 Jul 2008
Paying UK full price for Norton products is a mug's game - just dowload it from their US site.

Does the job fine, 21 Jun 2008
I use Norton 2008 and it does the job fine. Old versions of Norton had a reputation for being a bit slow but 2008 seems pretty good - and faster than my old AVG. I haven't used Ghost so can't comment on that part.

DONT BUY, 16 Jun 2008

Norton is one of the worst viurs protection software, and its has a subscription charge.

Look in to Avast, one of the best virus scanners
I have ever come across.
And Acronis True Image, instead of Norton Ghost.
For making an image of a computer

DONT BUY THIS SOFTWARE

Great time saver!, 19 May 2008
There are a lot of partition tools out there and although I was tempted to go the DIY route for free, I am glad I didn't as there was a lot more to it than I thought. Fortunately Partition Magic took me through the steps required and gave me the tools required to do a successful partition expansion.

The only reason I didn't rate it the full five stars is that the Emergency Disk Recovery tool that comes with it insists on backing up to diskettes - but my machine doesn't have a floppy disk drive and wouldn't recognise the USB pen I tried - definately a case for an update there!

Otherwise a solid and easy to use program - well worth the money for the time it saved me and avoiding the grief I could of caused myself!


Good but not a problem solver, 01 May 2008
I have used this on XP for long and it works ok as long as you want to do basic stuff and your Master Boot Record is healthy. But Partition Magic seems totally incompatible with Acronis TrueImage (a backup solution) as well as Linux.

I have been incredibly frustrated with Partition Magic for not being able to work with Acronis partitions and Linux partitions. It simply refuses to start and returns an error (113). Symantec support is semi-polite but cuts you off, quoting "you have a hard drive error".

My advice - be cautious before buying.

Totally useless, 08 Sep 2007
I've been battling with this so-called product for 3 nights. I diligently read the manual before starting. All I wanted was two separate partitions, each with their own version of Windows, one for my children's games and one for my freelance work. I have nearly 30 years IT experience and all I can say is that this product sucks! I'm never using it again and would recommend you avoid it at all costs. I'm now rebuilding the PC software from the ground up and looking for another product. Also, their web site is extremely slow - I guess probably due to the number of people looking for help when things go wrong. Why do I have to give this one star? Come on Amazon, allow us to award no stars!

Don't buy this!! Buy Acronis Disk Director instead, 21 Jun 2007
Partition Magic is rubbish. I tried using it to partition a USB stick which I installed drivers for so that XP thinks it's a hard drive. Any little change I made caused Partition Magic to decide to reboot my system - completely retarded. It always complained about problems with the partition table and when it "fixed" them, made a bootable USB become unbootable! It is spastic! Don't buy it! Unless you hate yourself and like to make life a misery.

Unfortunately in order to post this review I had to give it one star, it deserves -5

Acronis Disk Director is far superior.
It makes tons of changes, hides/unhides partitions, formats, converts filesystems, makes partitions active or not active, has a much nicer GUI, is easier to use, doesn't cause loss of data, much, much better product in every way!!!

stay away at all costs, 23 Dec 2006
I got a new computer, high spec and everything. Wanted to do a partitio, and i was already familiar with the existence of partition magic, so I got it and the only magic it did is that it ruined everything. it stopped in the middle of partitioning, windows would not restart, recovery could not work, nothing. So I had to reformat and lost all the data. what is worth is that it does not support hard drives bigger than 90 giga, and I had to know that from an IT expert, and that was not mentioned either on the box, or on the website. It is overpriced as well. I had bought Acronis's partition manager, which is fantastic, for a fraction of the price, and it works a lot better.
Keep your pc safe, and stay away from this software.

Does what it says if you can work out how to do it, 05 Mar 2008
I have been using Ghost 10 for quite a while. Ghost 10 didn't have the most intuitive of intuitive of interfaces but I quickly got used to its quirks. I had read that the new program had made this all a lot clearer and on first sight it is. It is much larger with nice pie charts and graphics showing you information about what backups you have. After struggling with it for hours, I decided it was far less intuitive or just the same but involving more operations. If you want to delete recovery points, what do you want - tasks or tools? What these people never seem to do when designing these things is to ask their secretaries or girl friends to sit down and try and work it out. They might get some useful suggestions.

The additional feature not found in Ghost 10 is the file or folder backup. This is backed up separately on your external hard drive and is not incorporated in the main backup. You can select file types which will backup all files of that type. Then there is My Documents which will back up this (minus the files in My Pictures and My Music as the 'folders' for these are, in fact, short cuts not real folders). Then you can define file(s) or folder(s) which change rapidly and you need to back up frequently.

The main problem with this section of the program is viewing the folders or files you have backed up. You have to enter a file name in a search box to view the backed up files. I never know the names of the files I'm working with, especially ones with names like xcve6755.jpg. There is an 'advanced' search but this depends on date, file size, etc. I have eventually brought up what I want to I am new sure how I did it! Then you can check if it is backed up properly. The same applies to restore. What is needed is a facility to view all the files and folders of each defined backup so you can explore and then choose.

I do not often have to resort to the Help menu with most programs but you will with this. The printed manual you get with the box is a pale shadow of its predecessor, on economic grounds no doubt. The manual tells you about installation, creating a Recovery Disc etc but virtually nothing about day to day operations. This is all found on the comprehensive help that comes with the program. If your computer dies on you, however, these will not be available to you. If you have access to another computer, look in the Ghost 12 folder in C:/Programs and copy the help file and store it on a memory stick. Alternatively, print out the help pages (or copy and paste to a Word document (over 100 sides). It is essential to know how to boot the computer with the Recovery Disk to rescue it and you will need step by step guidance unless you are very computer literate, so at least print this out as it is not in the manual.

The Help pages are generally good but are too cursory at times and, it seems, when you most need them. The index and search facilities are often unhelpful, bringing up long lists of topics leaving you unsure as to which to look up. I have found my Word document version better as I can search by single words or phrases and bring the text up.

A word about the Recovery Disc. You use this to boot the computer into basic Windows to enable you to overwrite and restore the whole of your hard disk. When you install, you can run a scan from the product CD to validate drivers. It will tell you if any drivers are missing from the CD (not the computer)to enable recovery to run. After installation, you make your own disk by burning a recovery CD which Ghost ensures includes copies of these drivers. Be sure to test the disk to make sure it works. This procedure is NOT described in the manual.

This is a good program but let down by the time needed to learn where things are. Better sub-menus would solve a lot of this. These are mainly problems for the new user and time will resolve them. There may be other products which do a similar job which are easier to use but Ghost 10 has restored my computer on a couple of occasions. The alternative would have been to reinstall Windows and every application, one by one, and then the data - a good day's work if you are lucky and a year off your life. Don't underestimate the value of Ghost 12 - it will restore your operating system, the registry, your applications and your data in an hour or two while you have a cup of tea.

Symantec buys company and ruins product, 01 Feb 2008
Absolute rubbish. There should be a minus stars rating.
Drive Image was a fine product, Symantec indulged in their usual practice of eliminating competition, and ruined a good product. If you have Vista you are better off using the tools that already exist in it, or upgrading from the Home Edition to get them. Do not even think of using Ghost if you have RAID.

Absolute rubbish, 30 Nov 2007
Pretty interface and all looks very professional but simply cannot be relied on, and doesnt work anyway! Wanted to clone (copy disk) my boot hard disk (XP) to another clean drive with lots of space, formatted and error free. C:\ drive was around 10gb and I was sending it to D:\ drive which was 20gb. It got to the end of the copy routine, about 30 minutes, having copied around 8gb of 10gb and said it *failed* with the error "too few clusters". I checked the website and it suggested running chkdsk /f which I did, and even tried chkdsk /r with no errors. I tried three times and failed every one. Rubbish software. Rubbish support. Rubbish company. Now dumping it and looking elsewhere.

Solid and reliable, but may not be worth upgrading from Ghost 10, 15 Oct 2007
There a lot you can say about Symantec - much of it bad and some of it unrepeatable - but you can't argue with a piece of software that consistently does exactly what it claims to do. Unlike the utter disaster that was Acronis True Image 10 - whose popularity among magazine reviewers can only be based on none of them ever having actually used it - Ghost 10 competently got on with the job of backing up my system, and, once, just as competently restoring it after a disaster.

And now there's Ghost 12 - but although it has a number of new features over Ghost 10, some of them are going to be of pretty limited value to a home user with one or two personal machines. The remote management and LightsOut Restore features might be useful to network sysadmins but they're of no use to me. Similarly the integrated google desktop feature is probably useful to some people, somewhere, but I'm not one of them. It's a lot prettier than Ghost 10, though, with a new interface design and much nicer and more detailed menus. The ability to back up specific files, file-types and folders is a nice new feature, although individual items can already be selected and restored from within a complete disk image so it's not an essential one.

One thing that has been much improved in Ghost 12 is a feature that hopefully you'll never see. Ghost 10 took an incredibly (and nail-bitingly) long time to boot into the recovery environment from the CD. Ghost 12 is much faster and the recovery environment has undergone the same facelift as the user