Just downloaded 2.3, and when I start it up, it takes > 1 minute to start, during which time my machine is mostly nonresponsive to user actions. I'm on Windows 98; I had uninstalled the previous version from the control panel first, but somehow the new one still knew it was registered to me.<br><br>Wondering whether this is related to something I noticed during installation; the progress meter froze for ~2 minutes at "Copying Ping Plotter.exe", 71%; wintop showed cpu usage pegging.<br><br>Once PP starts, it's fine, but it's unusable in its current state, so I am reverting to the previous one via a backup of C: I have.<br><br>

It seems that Norton Antivirus auto protect doesn't like the new binary for some reason. I'm currently tracking down the reason for this, but it seems to be a bug in Norton Antivirus (or an "issue" with it, at least). I've not yet determined why it only happens on some machines.<br><br>I'd love to know the specifics of your hardware setup (RAM, CPU speed, operating system, etc.) to help Symantec get to the bottom of this.<br><br>Thanks!<br><br>Pete<br><br>

Hmm, I think I have found a correlation; the behavior ceases when I disable Norton AntiVirus. I have confirmed this several times each way. This is NAV 4.04 (I know, I know, but the virus defs are up to date). Once again, the previous version of PP never had a problem.<br><br>

A bit of followup on this.<br><br>For now, Symantec recommends having Norton Antivirus ignore this file in its virus scans. This will stop auto-protect from scanning that file when you start/access Ping Plotter, and should be a viable short-term work-around.<br><br>Here are the instructions (a link to the symantec site) on how to add a file to your exclusion list.<br><br><A HREF="http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nav.nsf/docid/199829164436&src=w" target="_new">How to add a file to the exclusion list in NAV</A><br><br>On my test machine (the one that best duplicates this problem), it takes the load time from 15 seconds down to just about instantly. I included *only* the c:\program files\ping plotter\pingplotter.exe file in my exclusion list to get these results.<br><br>Please note that even after doing this, the Ping Plotter install won't run any faster than it did before (it may seem to freeze at 71% - it will complete if you're patient). My install program first extracts to a temporary file (with a .tmp extension), and this file will get scanned as it is being written - which can take quite a while when NAV is acting up. Once the file is renamed to PingPlotter.exe, though, NAV won't scan it every time you run it - so it will start quickly.<br><br>

I have a report so bizarre that it needs to be documented here. The fix above does not work for me. The behavior continues in spite of exclusions, *even when the NAV process is terminated*. In fact, the only thing that prevents it is running NAV and telling it to disable auto-protect. Here is the complete history of my current attempts:<br><br>I killed NAV (version 4) and installed PP2.3. Once again there was a 2min freeze at 71%. I rebooted and told NAV to exclude PP.exe (via the browse button). No difference. I changed the exclusion from the full path to PingPlotter.exe, then PINGPL~1.EXE, then the parent folder (include subfolders). No difference each time. Initially I had told it to exclude everything except boot sector stuff, but I soon changed this to all exclusions. I reverted to specifying the full path to PP.exe and added the LPNG.DLL, .CNG, .HLP and .INI files in the same directory, no difference.<br><br>At this time I observed that killing the NAVAPW32.EXE task didn't help. However, running it but disabling it through the systray *did* (which is what I discovered in my previous report).<br><br>I then monitored the activity with WINTOP. What happens is that initially the CPU for the Explorer task goes to 99.9+%, then PP starts and its CPU goes to 99.9% for a while. There is a period when the system hangs for about 30 seconds, then PP appears and everything is fine. There is no evidence of excessive I/O during this time.<br><br>This behavior extends to *right-clicking on PP.EXE in the Explorer window*! This causes Explorer to max out on CPU, then the context menu comes up, at which point selecting the properties causes the same effect, and then when the property popup appears, selecting its version tab causes it again.<br><br>No other file does this, and I have never seen this behavior before. Neither could I find out anything about it on the Symantec web site. It's as though when PP was being installed, NAV put some kind of code inside it (I know how bizarre that sounds and I don't really believe it, but I have no better explanation; in other words, I'm lost).<br><br>It occurs to me that there must be some persistence on my system that I don't know about since PP2.3 knows it is registered, yet I uninstalled the previous PP first and never entered my registration code for PP2.3. This might have something to do with it.<br><br>I gotta revert to my previous PP and wait for another one to come out, I'm afraid.<br><br>

Your registration information is stored in your registry. The uninstall process doesn't actually remove the registration data in the registry (because it is actually entered after the install process is complete). The problem we're seeing here isn't related to the registration data.<br><br>I wonder if there's a problem with the exclusion lists in NAV version 4.0 - I've tested this procedure on version 2000 and version 2001, but not 4.0.<br><br>I'm still working on this - I'll keep you informed as to my progress.<br><br>

Although this is really a Norton Antivirus issue, this problem was affecting enough people that I did some work to work around the issue for now. If you're seeing this problem, visit <A HREF="http://www.pingplotter.com/beta" target="_new">http://www.pingplotter.com/beta</A> and download the beta posted there. I've tested it on a pile of machines and configurations here, so hopefully it will pass muster, but there is some chance you might run into something - please post any issues you find!<br><br>

The fix for this has been incorporated into the 2.30.1 release. Check <A HREF="http://www.pingplotter.com/files.html" target="_new">http://www.pingplotter.com/files.html</A> to get the latest version.<br><br>