My "subscription" expires in July, can I just remove Norton from
the add/remove program page and then reinstall to continue to
get the latest updates instead of paying Norton for a
"subscription"? (Windows 2000)
You can do that with NAV 2001 and 2002. When you un-install them, the
uninstall process does not remove any of the Symantec program
directories or files. I believe that the only file that really needs
to be deleted for a successful reinstall is "catalog.livesubscribe".
I don't think that any registry entries need to be deleted or modified
either.
As for any version of NAV beyond 2002, I suspect that Symantec has
increased with each version the number of any remaining hooks or
remnants (files or registry entries) to insure that you won't be able
to reinstall NAV once it expires.
When it comes to a direct AV performance comparison between, say, NAV
2002 and NAV 2005, I doubt that on a pure real-time file-recognition
basis that there is any difference between the two. Perhaps versions
of NAV newer than 2002 have the ability to monitor the registry for
signs of malware infection, and possibly also for "adware" threats,
but that would be the only advantage of having a more recent version
of NAV vs an older one like 2002.