Norton Internet Security
Norton Internet Security (NIS) software helps protect your computer against viruses and spyware. It also includes its own Personal Firewall, similar to the built-in Windows Firewall.
Configuring Norton Internet Security to work with BUVS
When you first register your computer at BU, you are required to run the BUVS (BU Virus and Security) tool.
This page was written for Norton Internet Security 2006, which had major conflicts with the BUVS tool. Later versions of Norton Internet Security co-exist more cleanly. This page is here for people who may be running Norton Internet Security 2006, but also is here for reference in case the problem ever recurs in later versions.
| If you have Norton Internet Security 2006, you must turn the Norton Personal Firewall off before you run BUVS. If you do not turn it off, Norton Personal Firewall can interfere with BUVS and cause errors. (Later versions of Norton Internet Security cooperate better with BUVS.) |
Turning off the Norton Personal Firewall
- Right-click on the Norton Internet Security icon in your task bar (on the lower right of your screen)
and choose Open Norton Internet Security. - On left side of the screen, you may need to click on the Norton Internet Security tab, to expand your choices
- Click on Personal Firewall on right, then click on the button that says Turn Off.
- Norton does not like this, so you will see an alert. In response to the question How long do you wish to have Personal Firewall turned off, choose Permanently and click OK. (This is easy to undo later; don't worry.)
- If you are not going to run BUVS right away, please now turn on the Windows Firewall (if you are going to run BUVS immediately, you may skip this as BUVS will turn it on for you).
Turning the Norton Personal Firewall on again after you run BUVS (optional)
BUVS will turn on for you the built-in Windows Firewall, so your computer still has firewall protection. This is plenty of firewall protection for most people.
However, Norton Internet Security 2006 very strongly wants you to use their firewall instead of the Windows Firewall. Shortly after you have finished BUVS and rebooted, you will see an alert from Norton asking you to turn the Personal Firewall back on. You can choose to do this, or not.
You can also turn the Norton Personal Firewall on again by repeating what you did to turn it off, only instead of clicking the Turn Off button, click Turn On.
For more about the built-in Windows Firewall, please see www.bu.edu/pcsc/desktop/windows/firewall/
