From: rjberke@berke.itg.ti.com (Richard Berke)
Subject: Norton Desktop support from Symantec is terrible!
Organization: Electronic Communications
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 14:36:45 GMT

There are two topics here:

1. I'm frustrated with trying to get support out of Symantec's phone
   line and NDW tech staff.

2. I'm suffering from several apparently NDW 2.0 problems.


Support first:

Has anyone run into Symantec runaround?  I've been trying to get a copy
of their update to NDW 2.0.  My copy of 2.0 indicates itself as Viper 24, and
support told me the current release is over 200.  That info from the support 
contact was only obtained after waiting on their phone-hold for 20 minutes!  
I was told they'd ship me a copy right away.  That was on 09/17.   Almost 
two weeks later on 09/29, with no software received, I called, waited, and 
left specific voice mail asking for shipping confirmation, since I'd not 
received it.  I got a voice mail message back with no contents other than 
that they'd returned my call.  I had to call them back, and wait another 15+ 
minutes to get a person, who found my shipping address in the computer, but 
no record of any update shipped to me.  That person would NOT COMMIT TO ANY 
URGENCY in getting me an update!  Another voice message arrived for me the 
next day to say that Symantec was returning my call, again with no detail.  
This got me mad, and I faxed them a chronicle of the above.  I asked for 
contact back, asking what I need to do to get a copy of the update ASAP.
It's now ANOTHER WEEK LATER, and I've not been contacted, and have no update.

I'm airing this here because Symantec people who deal with contact 
via their support phone line apparently doesn't care enough about their 
customers.  Are other Symantec people listening?  Are other customers 
similarly frustrated with their support?

This is not just a support flame.  I have some problems with NDW 2.0
that appear to be bugs.  I'd like to know if any others have run into:

a.  NDW dialog box for network drives - connection=disconnection.  In 
    essence,  you can't disconnect.  MS WINFILE has no problem with this.
b.  Memory is frequently reported to be insufficient, despite Help About
    reporting more than 16 MB memory available (my PC has 16 MB real, with
    4 MB cache used before Windows.  I've configured 8 MB perm swap, so the
    reported 16 MB free should be about half real and half swap.) and free
    system resources of usually more than 60%.  DOS memory reported by 
    the MEM /C shows 520 KB free for apps before loading Windows.   How can 
    NDW's Windows apps    (Superfind, Sysinfo, etc) not be able to access 
    memory under Windows?    I also run into MS W4W 2.0a unable to load.  A 
    colleage runs into Excel with the same problem.  All of us operate 
    using NDW 2.0.
c.  I've run into intermittent PROTECTION VIOLATIONS by NDWMAIN.  They happen
    about once every other week.
d.  My system date/time appears to be advancing about 15 hours a day, some
    days.  My 4 colleagues running NDW 2.0 also see this problem.  No 
    colleage running only PROGMAN has run into this.
e.  Netmanage Chameleon communications application is highly unstable under
    NDW as my shell.  Running PROGMAN first, then Chameleon, improves 
    stability dramatically!  There are still problems, being worked by 
    Netmanage, but the improvement is distinctly noticeable.

Has anyone else run into applications problems under NDW, which run fine
    under PROGMAN as the shell?
Has anyone received updates to address the above?
What mechanism was used to obtain the updates?  were they from Symantec?

Thanks for your patience in wading through this.  Thanks in advance for 
any tips you can offer.

Sincerely,
Richard Berke   RBRK   Richard.Berke@lobby.ti.com  (214) 575-2828
Texas Instruments      Plano, Texas
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Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.apps