Norton Anti-Virus Erased N3V Files?

boleyd

Well-known member
I installed Norton Ant-Virus after an attempt by a scammer. One element of Norton is to delete "unused" files. Well it deleted many of the N3V files including the program. I eventually found a copy of N3V TRS22. I ran ok BUT the route I was working on (for a few years) appeared to be deleted. I found a copy but, while the route loaded, it was a red (unknowns) mess. I have spent hours trying to fix my route but to no avail. CDPs simply ran forever and seemed to produce nothing in the end. While the route loads most (not all) elements are missing. I tried the Coal Country route and it looked OK. So the basic program was functioning to some extent. However, upon examination there were anomalies. In an effort to fix this I found some menu functions missing.

If you look at this from an overview perspective. I have just enough remaining files to get started but there seems to be no way to load and route and manage it. Those files were erased. Thus my only choice seems to be a fresh install of TRS22. Then with all of the files (and routines) restored I may be able to use the CDPs to restore the route.

Assuming some files/code remains missing should anew re-purchased program have a chance of restoring the route from my CDPs?

Should I totally erase all signs of Trainz, buy a new copy and use CDPs for restoration?
 
Should I totally erase all signs of Trainz, buy a new copy and use CDPs for restoration?
I cannot answer that question because I have never been in your situation.

To prevent a similar occurrence in the future, and it could happen to any of us, I advise the following two pronged strategy.
  1. Periodically make a backup of your entire user data folder to a secure (i.e. removable) external storage device (or several). Because this can be a slow process that will get slower as your user data folder gets bigger, I would not recommend this as a frequent event. In my case it is every month or more (with "more" being the more likely option).
  2. Export your current (i.e. those you are currently editing) routes, sessions and other assets that you have created as .cdp files to external storage. I do this every night before I switch off and I do it to 4 external devices because I am paranoid. One copy to MS One Drive which is, I believe, located in another country and you cannot get more "external" than that. One copy to each of 2 external USB drives and one to my NAS (Network Attached Storage) drive. About once a week I import the current .cdp project files into Content Manager from the NAS or One Drive to two other computers and another external USB drive on my network.
Regardless of which antivirus program you use, I would make sure that the Trainz user data folder and the Trainz application folder are excluded from the AVs real time scanning.
 
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You are probably correct. Trying to clean out some of that stuff can be a problem. I do not have a good feeling.
 
Trend Micro Maximum security has been installed on my machine for years without any program conflicts. Although you have replaced Trainz, your data should still be on the drive as it is separate from the program installation.
 
Yep, the data is still there and the route shows "lots of things red" . I believe I can manually reload those things (mostly trees) BUT:
I get a Connection Interrupted error when try to download any missing asset from the data base. Never saw this before.

The Content Manager shows no error on the item. Same thing on any other things I try to download. 126280 is the number of the Trainz+ load.
 
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This might have been due to a slow speed from the Internet. I reoriented the Netflix box.
Moved it and now
Download Mbps
93.91
Upload Mbps
3.82
Given those numbers could they prevent a download from Trainz. The upload looks weak.
 
I get a Connection Interrupted error when try to download any missing asset from the data base. Never saw this before.
This is Norton interrupting your connections. If you are using their firewall, you need to allow TRS22.exe access to the firewall. You should also exclude TRS22.exe and its program folders from real-time scanning and do the same for your data-folder. As I said in your other forum post regarding your download, Norton will kill the program and probably corrupt data because it'll scan and stop your data from loading.
 
Since you reinstalled the program but your original user data folder is (presumably) still present I would suggest setting the user data folder in your install to point to the original folder and then performing a DBR (it may automatically do this after the change to the folder).
 
Norton is horrible. Use the built-in antivirus. In Wing 10 + 11 it works great. Probably the ONLY MS program that is worth anything.
Yup and Microsoft didn't even write it originally. We can thank Alex Eckleberry from Sunbelt Software for the original scanner engine that went into MS Defender. They purchased that from him and expanded on it from there. I was using an early version of Sunbelt's Vipre antivirus and for the longest time I used Vipre as my antivirus until the product was purchased by another company that turned it into bloatware.
 
That is kind of what happened to Norton. It was good when it was from the original creator, then it got bought.
Yes! I used to standby Norton Antivirus until Symantec bought it and killed it. Polaroid used it for their systems. The only downfall with it was the desktops had to be restarted after an update and you know how many people did that...

When Polaroid Graphics Imaging split from Polaroid, we changed to Trend Micro's Neet Suite. This was quite powerful and did a better job without restarting. I emailed Trend's sales department and sang high praises and got a 5-year multi-license subscription for my personal use. After that, I subscribed to them but switched eventually to Vipre and then Defender. Trend Micro is though still one of the best, I think.

Here's a Norton story you might get a kick out of.

Back in the 1990s, my brother ran a prepress and screen-printing shop. More often than not he'd get a referral from one of the local print shops to print out someone's resumé and mount it on a board so the person could get copies made most of the time because the printer had little time to fuss with a one-off resumé job.

Most of the time, people would bring in a printed resumé that had to be typeset which I did for the customer. However, there were increasing numbers of people bringing in floppy disks for print out.

With the increasing number of people coming in with floppies, I thought it would be "safer" to set up a separate PC strictly for virus scanning. This had access to the outside via a modem for signature updates and no access to the local network for obvious reasons.

One day an elder gentleman and his young son came in with a 5-1/4" floppy with the kid's resumé on it. I took the kid's floppy and put it into the virus scanning PC and... The famous bright red Norton Antivirus screen appeared with a banner saying that the Monkey Virus was found.

As I handed the disk back to the kid, while explaining that we would not do anything with the disk due to the virus, his eyes widened and then took the disk by his fingernails as he held it on the corner with his arm stretched out as far as he could as if the Monkey Virus was going to crawl off the disk and up his arm!

After he left, we burst out laughing and never forgot the incident. Periodically, we bring it up and still laugh about it today.
 
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Getting that thing out of there will be a nightmare. It is not designed to be removed easily. Typical, these days as companies shove morality aside in favor of profit. Right now it is harmless, but is it being effective?
 
Getting that thing out of there will be a nightmare. It is not designed to be removed easily. Typical, these days as companies shove morality aside in favor of profit. Right now it is harmless, but is it being effective?
Have you tried uninstalling it?

Right-click on your start-button.
Click on Installed apps.
Scroll the list or search for Norton and uninstall it.
 
Probably a good suggestion. My recent run-in with slime scammers was my fault. Should not play trainz late at night. It was a phone call from Microsoft saying they saw a problem on my PC and they could fix it. Any rational person could smell trouble. But, for a reason I would never know, I bit. No junk detector could have stopped that. As a continued idiot I let them install stuff to get control. All my fault. Virus detectors seem unable to correct bad judgement by the customer.
 
Probably a good suggestion. My recent run-in with slime scammers was my fault. Should not play trainz late at night. It was a phone call from Microsoft saying they saw a problem on my PC and they could fix it. Any rational person could smell trouble. But, for a reason I would never know, I bit. No junk detector could have stopped that. As a continued idiot I let them install stuff to get control. All my fault. Virus detectors seem unable to correct bad judgement by the customer.
They caught you off guard. We've all made mistakes; we're human. The good news is you recovered from this more or less and won't do it again. Some people, though, get hooked and go back more than once, and to make matters worse, most people who make this mistake are too ashamed to admit they were scammed and end up losing thousands of dollars or more from their retirement income.
 
I look to the comfort of Trainz, but various program problems, and the time spent on fixes, makes it a marginal refuge from the crime ridden net.
 
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