Upgrading Symantec Corporate Edition Antivirus Servers

Let me just start out by saying "Do not, I repeat, do not upgrade a Symantec CE AV Server with version 9.01". That is the latest public version visible on the website, but it has a bug that may cause the server to create a duplicate server group. So if you have a server group named SYMCE, you will see a duplicate group named SYMCE (2).

If you have a current subscription (which you better have if you are using Sym CE AV anyhow) call up their support and get the location and passwords to download 9.0.2.

And it's best if you uninstall everything from the server (AMS, SSC, AV, LiveUpdate) and then reinstall from the new version. Of course if you do that and don't have a backup server, you will lose all of your configuration settings, so make sure you have a backup server before you uninstall from one of your Sym CE AV servers.

Comments

[Jeremy]

Just so you know I just went through the painful upgrade process with 9.0x as well.. I have the same issue you did w/ the (2) problem..

I also got corrupted dats after the upgrade which caused miscommunication amongst my 1000+ clients.. After several hours on the phone, applying a rapid release dat seemed to fix it for the time being..

symantec used to be a great product, but recently everything they offer has been declining.. We use brightmail for spam detection which works great until Symantec bought them and released a new version.. but thats another story..

[Andy]

The having to uninstall everything whilst upgrading is a massive pain in the neck. Its also unacceptable to have to delete antivirus software whilst you upgrade as that means you are vulnerable for the hour or so to do the upgrade and the subsequent debugging.

[Diane]

We too have had nothing but issues with the 9.0 upgrades, initially we were going to roll out the upgrade with DFS and GPO, but it's so buggy that I had to scrap the whole idea.

Running clean the 9.x's are fine, but it's one of the definitive buggy "painful upgrades" out there

[Chris Quan]

Does anyone have problems with XDB stop pushing out the update to client? This happens once a while but now last for 4 days. I had tried everything and ended up coming out with my own solution to push out the update.

Chris

[Bob]

Any comments on upgrading from Symantec Corp 9.0 to 10? Does it make sense to upgrade?

[Alexander Scoble]

I'd say that it's generally a good idea to keep you antivirus protection up to date. They are always making improvements to the scan engines which can help you with zero hour viruses (ones that are in the wild that don't have entries in dat files).

Just remember that on the server side, you will want to uninstall your current software and install the new version. This is only for the Symantec Corp servers and not for servers that just have the antivirus client installed.

All other clients (including servers that just have the client install) can be in-place upgraded.

[Jeff]

Had 8.6 running on an NT domain, upgraded to server 2003 and naturally upgraded to 9.X and the server group lasted about 5 weeks, the primary server that all desktops were expecting downloads from... was suddenly and inexplicably DISABLED. Many hours on hold and two hours to find out that I should uninstall and then reinstall. Can you spell postal???

[Fred]

We provide computer services and have been reselling Symantec products. After spending many of our own hours fruitlessly trying to install Symantec products, we began to consider our options. If you can install them successfully, more power to you! We’d not suggest removing them. But, if you do remove one of them, beware that you may never be able to re-install because of inadequate removal tools, procedures, etc.

The Symantec website is full of special tools and instructions for removal of their software – giving witness to the problem! Following any of these instructions is very iffy. We’ve had lots of systems where re-installation is even by an expert is frankly impossible. Only reinstalling Windows would seem to fix the problem.

We have communicated our concerns to Symantec management. One of our questions asked “what’s up? regarding fixing this” We received a telephone call from a fellow who “wasn’t technical”. He disavowed any knowledge of “a problem” even though our letter was very clear about what the problem is (not what causes it). We had asked for a status report regarding when the problem would be fixed. No acknowledgement of a problem and no answer to our question. Accordingly we had to plan a different approach.

After one more failed attempt we gave up on Symantec altogether. We wrote to their management informing them of our decision. No answer.

We still run into Symantec products on customer computers of course. Recently we had one that had to be uninstalled and, lo and behold, we could not reinstall it! This makes us even more circumspect if we encounter a Symantec install.

It’s too bad. The Symantec products seem to work pretty well when they’re there. But, they do slow down the boot process and all that stuff that goes into the registry is more than a bit worrisome. We’re using Zone Alarm and TrendMicro (PC Cillin) products now in trials to find a suitable replacement.

[Alex Scoble]

I'd also highly recommend that you look at the AVG antivirus products. They actually offer a free version (search google for AVG free) and that's what I've been installing on any unprotected home PC that I come across.

I'd also highly recommend that you install Microsoft's Beta Antispyware tool as well as SpywareGuard, SpywareBlaster and Spybot S&D.

As far as Trend Micro, they do offer excellent AV products and Zone Alarm is a very good application firewall.

Good luck to you in your process of finding products that you can stand behind. It's not often easy to do...as one person once said (actually, a lot of people have probably said it over the years) "all software sucks, live with it".

[Tony]

I agree with almost every instance that has been stated here about the problems with installing/uninstalling Symantec products. If you need an excellent AV solution look to www.sonicwall.com and the AV they provide with their products. It is able to do alot more than what Symantec and AVG are capable of, plus the yearly license for it is less than Symantec! I have over `00 of these units in the field and i swear and die by them.

[Kevin henry]

I want to uninstall Symantec Server Group but there isn't any utility to do this are there option in unistalling the sever group cause I am notified every minute that the server group is down and is so annoying. Please help me!!!