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Q81743: Norton Antivirus Drivers Hang SMARTDRV.EXE

Article: Q81743
Product(s): Microsoft Windows 95.x Retail Product
Version(s): WINDOWS:3.1,3.11
Operating System(s): 
Keyword(s): 
Last Modified: 03-OCT-1999

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The information in this article applies to:

- Microsoft Windows versions 3.1, 3.11 
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SUMMARY
=======

Norton Antivirus for Windows and MS-DOS has two drivers that load in the
CONFIG.SYS: NAV_.SYS and NAV&.SYS. These drivers can conflict with Microsoft
Windows 3.1's SMARTDRV.EXE version 4.0.

MORE INFORMATION
================

The conflict between the drivers can cause the system to stop responding (hang)
during startup or can cause the scanning process to fail. The following are the
conditions for conflict.

System Hangs During Boot Process
--------------------------------

Both the Norton drivers and SMARTDRV.EXE file automatically load into the UMB
area between 640K and 1024K, where they conflict with each other.

There are two solutions to this problem:

1. Modify the AUTOEXEC.BAT file's SMARTDRV.EXE line and add a /L parameter to
  force SMARTDRV.EXE to load low, as follows

  C:\WINDOWS\SMARTDRV.EXE /L xxxx yyyy

  where xxxx is size and yyyy is winsize.

2. Modify the CONFIG.SYS file and add a /B to the NAV&.SYS line:

  DEVICE=C:\NORTON\NAV&.SYS /B

Scanning Process Fails
----------------------

Norton Antivirus may give the following error message on a low-memory machine
running SMARTDRV.EXE:

  Not Enough Memory to Scan Application

To solve this problem:

- Free additional memory by not loading other drivers or
  terminate-and-stay-resident (TSR) programs.

  -or-

- Disable SMARTDRV.EXE.

Norton Driver Descriptions
--------------------------

NAV_.SYS is used to scan for viruses whenever an application is launched or a
file is copied, and detects boot-sector and partition- table viruses. It takes
up more memory and is faster than NAV&.SYS.

NAV&.SYS is used to scan when applications are launched and detects
boot-sector viruses on floppy drives. It is more compact than NAV_.SYS, and uses
overlays. The /B causes NAV&.SYS to use more memory and bypass the conflict
in the UMB area.

The Norton products included here are manufactured by a vendor independent of
Microsoft; we make no warranty, implied or otherwise, regarding these products'
performance or reliability.

Additional query words: 3.10 3.1 3.11 norbert smartdrive win31 3rdparty 6.00

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Keywords          :  
Technology        : kbWin3xSearch kbZNotKeyword3 kbWin310 kbWin311
Version           : WINDOWS:3.1,3.11

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