How do I reinstal pre installed software.

[Wingco1]

My friend is having trouble with Norton Antivirus 2007, which was pre installed when he bought his laptop. Symantec suggest uninstal and reinstal. I have downloaded the latest Norton uninstal tool, but the problem is where do we find the programme instal .exe file, and the Licence key.

Have downloaded Belarc Advisor which shows licence keys on my laptop, but it doesn't show on his 

[Rik]

I suspect you'd have to restore the entire drive to 'factory state' if it's like most laptops.

[Steve]

If norton is the only issue, get rid of it completely and use something else

[Rik]

That would also be my recommendation.

[Wingco1]

I've suggested he get rid, but he says he's got 3 months subs to run and is reluctant    I've put AVG on as well to reassure him. I've found a lot of info on the "auto protect" problem, which apparently can start as a result of running system restore. Fixing it requires uninstall and reinstall, not much use if you don't have the CD 

[Sebby]

The 3 months sub comes free, so you don't lose anything by not using it and using AVG Free instead.

But, as others have said, he'll probably need to do a "recovery" (or whatever the manufacturer in question calls it). Who is the manufacturer, out of interest?

[Wingco1]

Toshiba, it's a L30-10s. He's had it over 12 months and paid for another year I believe.

[Sebby]

If it was Sony, I know how to extract the pre-installed software, but not for Toshiba. You might find some information on Google, though.

[Wingco1]

Thanks Sebby, nothing obvious "Googled", so he'll have to decide what he wants to do.

[Rik]

I had a Toshiba some years ago which came with a recovery DVD, but that's as much as I can remember, unfortunately. If he's renewed with Symantec, I would have thought they could provide a d/l link.

[Gary]

If its like my mothers it stores the licence key in a file in my documents. Or you can log into your Symantec account from the application and retrieve it there *shudders horrible software* It has an active x security issues that YOU have to fix by downloading a patch, they will not update it via auto destruct, sorry auto update

[Wingco1]

I wonder if he could download the prog from symantec  Then again I can't really be bothered with the hassle