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Today 7th August 2010 my NIS renewal became due. On the front settings screen a pretty “renewal” button popped up and Windows advised me that my security had been turned off completely. I don’t want to renew just yet but I still want to be able to use my security suite but was unable to access any of it. I contacted Symantec for on-line support to be told that indeed my product will cease to operate (in all areas) unless I renew my subscription, on querying this I was pointed to the EULA which states:

“The Software may automatically deactivate and become non-operational at the end of the Service Period, and You will not be entitled to receive any feature or content updates to the Software unless the Service Period is renewed.”

This to me seems to say that we (the customer) do not own the product at all and are in fact renting it. The “may” bit seems (to me) to indicate that this rule only might apply, but I couldn’t find or elicit an answer to explain the “may” bit or the rules governing when it may or may not kick in.

The support guy added 30 days to my subscription to give me time to be able to pay.

The way I figure it is that I bought the software and if I don’t want to update then that is my call NOT Symantecs, it is NOT up to them to simply stop my product from working – unless, of course, the product IS only rented – and if it’s not rented then by stopping me using it they are effectively ‘stealing’ it off me.

Can anyone A) advise a way to get beyond the renewal screen and to my settings without renewing etc. and B) do ‘we’ own or rent the NIS software.

As a note I have found over the last 5 or 6 years that it is always cheaper to buy new rather than subscribe. I have also noticed that there is a sale (PC World, Currys, Amazon) on NIS every 4th or 6th month when the software is just about half price – I buy it then and install when existing one expires. I once renewed on-line but the renewed product lost some functionality which is why I started buying new.

Cheers
Dadto2