Why NSW is free (with rebates) year after year? Read this all-to-common story of frustration by Charles Cooper for reasons to seek alternative solutions other than Symantec: Why does PC support stink? Ask Symantec
Another point-of-view from columnist Fred Langa:
Over time, Symantec has increasingly emphasized “soft” PC problems more and more, and steadily downplayed “hard” problems. For example their disk tools now mainly focus on various forms of more or less routine software rollbacks and file-recovery techniques; and not so much on resurrecting a system or hard drive that’s suffered a catastrophic problem (such as a head crash, or accidental formatting or repartitioning).In fairness to Symantec, the overwhelming majority of drive problems *are* of the softer, simpler sort: In these instances, a “GoBack” or “Unerase” or “Disk Doctor” tool can be a huge help. But these tools aren’t fundamentally different from what’s already included in Windows. With the Symantec tools, you’re getting somewhat extended functionality, a slicker interface, and more automated operation— all good things. But you’re not getting an entirely new set of functions that you didn’t already have, at least in simpler form, built into Windows. For example, GoBack and Unerase extend the functions you already have in System Restore and Recycle Bin. And if you already have a good, full-blown backup procedure in use, a tool like GoBack is nearly pointless.
Likewise, consider Norton Disk Doctor: If your hard drive is munged, you can run NDD from the installation Symantec/Norton CD; but the current versions of NDD don’t do anything fundamentally different from what Chkdsk (or Scandisk, in older versions) can do; those tools are already built into Windows. In fact, the User’s Guide for Norton SystemWorks 2005 only has maybe 1000 words, total, on the entire subject of “If your disk is damaged…” Most of those 1000 words is devoted to using Windows’ own, or Norton’s, emergency disks so you can access GoBack or the other “soft” recovery tools.
In contrast, the old versions of the Norton Utilities included a powerful “sector editor” that let you examine and manipulate a hard drive literally byte by byte. Tools like that weren’t fun to use, but in those rare instances when you needed ‘em, you *really* needed them, and they could be a lifesaver. But the newer versions have nothing like that at all.
So: Is something like SystemWorks 2005 useful? Yes, but only in a limited way: The more skillful and knowledgeable you are; and the more well-setup your PC is; the less useful it is to have these tools. (Oddly, this is totally the opposite of the old Norton Utilities, whose value increased as you gained knowledge and experience). On my PCs the Antivirus is the only Symantec/Norton tool I still routinely use.