Collins Computer Services

I have Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP) installed in two locations – both with “on the side” clients of mine.  Once their respective support contracts expire, I will be removing SEP from both sites.

Why?  Simple.  It’s too finicky to be trusted.

In both offices I’ve basically got someone onsite who has to reboot the server once a month to keep the thing running.  When it’s running, I guess it does ok, but when it fails, it might be days before anyone knows about it.

But the nail in the coffin was when I called Symantec‘s tech-support today and was told that since I bought it from Dell, I need to call Dell for support.  That, of course, is 100% wrong.  A second call 20 minutes later proved that.  But it was simply the fact that their own support agent didn’t know what she was supposed to support and when that gave me the very WRONG impression of Symantec’s abilities.

Another thing that really surprised me was when I found out that the database used by SEP was corrupt, the only option provided to me was to un-install and re-install the entire server program!  No diags, no possible salvage, nothing – just wipe and reload.

Oh if you’re still thinking about using this product, be sure that your server has at least 4GB of free space (after the SEP install of course) on the “C” Drive or its database could simply run out of room.  Appearently SEP downloads anti-virus definitions three times a day (not a problem) and holds on to every one of them for a very long time – like maybe as long as a year!  (BIG PROBLEM)

I did find a nice utility to use though – SpaceSniffer.  It’s a tool that graphically shows you where the space on your hard is being allocated.  Today it pointed out that nearly 40GB of this server’s storage was being used by the SQL server.  Not that I could do anything about it,but at least it shows me the biggest uses of the space that I have.

In addition (as my last post states) I found out about “netsh” and some additional Group Policy firewall controls that work – most of the time.

All in all, it’s been a GREAT day! NOT!