Not a techie crowd tonite?
I'm not that technical, so can't give you an answer.
But if you posted this in General Chat, you'd get lots of help. Many computer problems are solved there. :)
Running Windows XP SP2? There are some incompatibilities with Norton software. Search on www.microsoft.com for info.
You don't need Norton AntiSpam anyway. Your ISP usually comes with a free antispam program, in addition to a free firewall and antispyware.
As a rule, it's helpful to specify the operating system you are using and the state of updates on it (i.e., SP-2 with latest upgrades?).
Also what version of Norton you just installed. Is it 2005?
I had some incompatibilities between some of the new features in NAV 2005 and one of my programs, Spam Pal, because it thought that it was a worm. It could be that it's seeing some antispam program you have installed as a worm. If so, maybe you can tweak it to approve the program it's having problems with.
I have to agree, free is better, per my own experience and from listening to various computer related radio programs.
I have used a similar free one also, this one from Germany, (www.free-av.com) for 3+ years with excellant results, but have heard AVG recommended a number of times by gurus.
My 100% 'fix' lately has been to use start using Xandros 3.0, PCLinuxOS .81 and SUSE Linux 9.0 on my machines where possible and only using Windows when not having the choice or expertise to avoid XP. I use 'dual boot' on each of my 3 machines. SUSE is a very easy install program to set that up. I started with SUSE but in Linux, as in a lot of other things, the grass is always greener on the other side, in this case, of the OS fence.
One more suggestion to dump Norton. I was an enthusiastic Norton booster until last year. I convinced many people to install it. No longer. Now it is as much spyware as the spyware it is suppose to control. Plus, it does bloat your system and can (as it has with you) cause more problems than it is supposed to prevent.
You might want to check microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics newsgroup and will see the number of problems Norton generates, not just with SP2. It is not the excellent set of programs it once was.
Any good ISP has decent protection (spam and viruses) and you can install AVG (anti-virus), Spybot, Adaware (both anti-spyware), zonealarm (firewall) and Asquared (Trojan killer) to very adequately protect your system, and all are free.
Defrag and disk checking is in XP but I would like a good registry program like windoctor was. Even it has problems now.
I see you do not want to use Mozilla or Firefox. Too bad. They are exceptional browsers and add another layer of safety (no active-x). I have been using them since Moz 1.0.
Wish I could get some help getting my audio (speakers) to work. Running XP Professional. It had a big woofer box plugged into the computer and the speakers plugged into that. The woofer had a problem so I took that stuff off and plugged a pair of regular speakers (working previously) into the audio jack on the sound card. No dice and don't know how to get them to work. XP shows the card to be working properly. Help?