NAV 2007 Application Detection Error

I never thought that Symantec knew who or what WinPatrol was but apparently they think we’re some kind of threat.  New users to Norton’s NAV 2007 are reporting a setup warning that says WinPatrol is incompatible and are recommending users to remove Scotty the Windows WatchDog.  I can understand their fear of competition from Microsoft but they’re big enough to purchase and just kill WinPatrol if they wanted.

There is No Compatibility issues between WinPatrol and NAV 2007

I haven’t found any incompatibility and I can’t image why Norton would feel threatened by WinPatrol.  I also installed Norton Internet Security 2007 which appears to include NAV and it had no complaints about WinPatrol. 

The only issue they might have is that WinPatrol will alert users that Norton is installing numerous auto-run components and  new Services.  That’s what WinPatrol is suppose to do. It shouldn’t be a problem since users already know they’re installing Norton and will likely approve these additions. Perhaps Symantec doesn’t want users to know how many separate programs are installed. WinPatrol PLUS users can also look up information on each of the 10+ autorun components which are registered during setup.

BillP Studios isn’t the only little guy being maligned by Symantec. On the Blog Security Garden, Corrine recently published an article titled “Why is Norton Telling Customers to Uninstall Spybot.”

My real surprise was, except for the bogus warning about WinPatrol, I found Norton doesn’t really suck.  Their 2007 programs appear to be a big improvement over previous suites.

Update 10/10/2006: Ed Foster’s GripeLog at InfoWorld has reported on addition incompatibility alerts. “Norton 2007 Incompatibility Warning Breeds Insecurity”