Symantec Norton Save & Restore.(Product/service evaluation)

Byline: Terry Relph-Knight

Symantec Norton Save & Restore

Price [pounds sterling]46.99 (download), [pounds sterling]54.04 (CD) Contact Symantec www.symantec.co.uk

Symantec is a well-established software company with a wide range of products and Norton Ghost, a disk-imaging product now up to version 10.0, has been part of its range for some time. Norton Save and Restore 2006 is a new product based largely on Ghost technology. Compared to Ghost 10, the new features offered by Save and Restore are: specific file and folder backup, group backup by file type, integration of the Norton Protection Centre console and the ability to trigger a backup from Norton Internet Security 2006 virus or worm outbreak notifications.

Generally Symantec products all have a cosmetically polished presentation and user interface. Norton Save & Restore is no exception, although installation turns out to be a bit of a minefield. The start-up splash screen from the product CD offers a choice of Install, Driver validation, Update locator, Read me, or Watch a product tour. The first and the last two options are fairly self evident. Driver validation checks to see if the device drivers present within the recovery OS are sufficient to operate the essential device services required during recovery (during system recovery Save & Restore loads and runs within its own operating system). Update locator searches for any Norton anti-virus definitions present on your disk and saves them to a desktop folder.