Any equvalent of Norton Utilities?

Was in a store the other day, just looking. Norton Securities was for
sale, and that got me to recalling when I was using Norton Utilities
for all manner of cool, neat and gee-whiz stuff.
But Norton Utilities was not for sale - at least not there.

Does anyone know if it still is, or if not what a reasonable
alternative to it?

tschus
pyotr
--
APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection. It is the language of the
future for the programming techniques of the past: it creates a new generation
of coding bums.
-- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5

pyotr filipivich wrote:
Was in a store the other day, just looking. Norton Securities was for
sale, and that got me to recalling when I was using Norton Utilities
for all manner of cool, neat and gee-whiz stuff.
But Norton Utilities was not for sale - at least not there.

Does anyone know if it still is, or if not what a reasonable
alternative to it?

tschus
pyotr

It depends on what part of Norton Utilities you considered
as an essential utility.

My copy, from the Win98 era, had a disk editor for FAT32. On
the side of the box, the advertising would tell you that
you needed a later version of the software, if you wanted
a disk editor for NTFS. I suppose such a thing exists, but
I don't recollect seeing pictures of it.

Many other functions, could be covered by some other specific
product, rather than by a competing suite of programs.

A review from one of the commercial sites, should tell you
what the competition has to offer.

https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2371157,00.asp

https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2371155,00.asp

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norton_Utilities

But let's face it, these are packages for people who have
money to waste.

I'd really like a disk editor, that can tell me what file
I'm on top of when hex editing. But I've not seen such a thing
for some time. I still use a hex editor, and with a utility like
NFI.exe, I should be able to compute the start address if I ever
needed to do something that dangerous. There aren't too many good
reasons to be editing a file, without the help of the file
system to present it to you.

Paul

pyotr filipivich wrote:
Was in a store the other day, just looking. Norton Securities was for
sale, and that got me to recalling when I was using Norton Utilities
for all manner of cool, neat and gee-whiz stuff.
But Norton Utilities was not for sale - at least not there.

Does anyone know if it still is, or if not what a reasonable
alternative to it?

tschus
pyotr

Well, I see Paul gave some suggestions for alternatives, plus I think Norton
became more bloatware when it sold out to Symantec. I think you may be
remembering the days long past (like a decade ago) when it really was a
great utility.

On Sat, 07 Oct 2017 16:40:48 -0400, Paul
wrote:

pyotr filipivich wrote:
Was in a store the other day, just looking. Norton Securities was for
sale, and that got me to recalling when I was using Norton Utilities
for all manner of cool, neat and gee-whiz stuff.
But Norton Utilities was not for sale - at least not there.

Does anyone know if it still is, or if not what a reasonable
alternative to it?

tschus
pyotr

It depends on what part of Norton Utilities you considered
as an essential utility.

My copy, from the Win98 era, had a disk editor for FAT32. On
the side of the box, the advertising would tell you that
you needed a later version of the software, if you wanted
a disk editor for NTFS. I suppose such a thing exists, but
I don't recollect seeing pictures of it.

Many other functions, could be covered by some other specific
product, rather than by a competing suite of programs.

A review from one of the commercial sites, should tell you
what the competition has to offer.

https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2371157,00.asp

https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2371155,00.asp

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norton_Utilities

But let's face it, these are packages for people who have
money to waste.

I'd really like a disk editor, that can tell me what file
I'm on top of when hex editing. But I've not seen such a thing
for some time. I still use a hex editor, and with a utility like
NFI.exe, I should be able to compute the start address if I ever
needed to do something that dangerous. There aren't too many good
reasons to be editing a file, without the help of the file
system to present it to you.

Paul

I used Norton Utilities for years. There were lots of cool tools in
there like a directory sort, the editor, file recovery tools, tools to
fix bad partition tables and such.
The latest version I have is Norton 2000 and I think it might do
something with NTFS drives but I never loaded it on an XT machine so I
am not sure. I might drag it out some day and see.

In message , Bill in Co
writes:
pyotr filipivich wrote:
Was in a store the other day, just looking. Norton Securities was for
sale, and that got me to recalling when I was using Norton Utilities
for all manner of cool, neat and gee-whiz stuff.
But Norton Utilities was not for sale - at least not there.

Does anyone know if it still is, or if not what a reasonable
alternative to it?

tschus
pyotr

Well, I see Paul gave some suggestions for alternatives, plus I think Norton
became more bloatware when it sold out to Symantec. I think you may be
remembering the days long past (like a decade ago) when it really was a
great utility.


I remember thinking NU was good when you called up the various bits of
it with two-letter codes (which were actually related to what they did,
rather than random), but feeling that it lost its basic simplicity when
the next thing happened to it. This vague memory might mean that it was
when it got a GUI - which was probably in Windows 3.1.

The nearest modern equivalent I can think of - and it's very different -
is NirLauncher: the person behind NorSoft has ... well, "NirLauncher is
a package of more than 200 portable freeware utilities for Windows, all
of them developed for NirSoft Web site during the last few years." See
http://launcher.nirsoft.net/ for it. I remember last time I looked at it
I saw some comment that it didn't include some of his very old utilities
(I think there might have been a zip of those too), but I can't see that
there now, so either he has included those too, or I just haven't
spotted it. (Or he's stopped saying it but is still not including them.)
It isn't just a package, I think like the NU of old it's a wrapper for
them all, i. e. you run it and then select the utility you want. I will
admit to not having played with it, though I've used (and been impressed
with) many of his individual utilities.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

The fifth bestselling detail of all time: the Ford Transit. (RT/C4 2015-5-24.)

"Bill in Co" on Sat, 7 Oct 2017
15:43:55 -0600 typed in microsoft.public.windowsxp.general the
following:
pyotr filipivich wrote:
Was in a store the other day, just looking. Norton Securities was for
sale, and that got me to recalling when I was using Norton Utilities
for all manner of cool, neat and gee-whiz stuff.
But Norton Utilities was not for sale - at least not there.

Does anyone know if it still is, or if not what a reasonable
alternative to it?

tschus
pyotr

Well, I see Paul gave some suggestions for alternatives, plus I think Norton
became more bloatware when it sold out to Symantec. I think you may be
remembering the days long past (like a decade ago) when it really was a
great utility.

More like two. I used a lot of those utilities in batch files to
create a menu:
[P]rogram pro[G]ram with different color letters, and timers for
logging the programs I usually ran.


--
pyotr filipivich
Next month's Panel: Graft - Boon or blessing?

on Sat, 07 Oct 2017 18:22:41 -0400 typed in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general the following:


I used Norton Utilities for years. There were lots of cool tools in
there like a directory sort, the editor, file recovery tools, tools to
fix bad partition tables and such.
The latest version I have is Norton 2000 and I think it might do
something with NTFS drives but I never loaded it on an XT machine so I
am not sure. I might drag it out some day and see.

So "Norton" is still got a utilities package, just under a
different name.
--
pyotr filipivich
Next month's Panel: Graft - Boon or blessing?

https://us.norton.com/norton-utilities ... Also, old Norton SystemWorks
came with them as well but it was discontinued several years ago.


pyotr filipivich wrote:

Was in a store the other day, just looking. Norton Securities was for
sale, and that got me to recalling when I was using Norton Utilities
for all manner of cool, neat and gee-whiz stuff.
But Norton Utilities was not for sale - at least not there.

Does anyone know if it still is, or if not what a reasonable
alternative to it?
--
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national guard... That's good! Wasn't any war any more than there's war
between men and ants." --stranger; "And we're eat-able ants. I found
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War of the Worlds
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\ _ / Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail privately. If credit-
( ) ing, then please kindly use Ant nickname and AQFL URL/link.

On 2017-10-07 16:40, Paul wrote:

I'd really like a disk editor, that can tell me what file
I'm on top of when hex editing. But I've not seen such a thing
for some time. I still use a hex editor, and with a utility like
NFI.exe, I should be able to compute the start address if I ever
needed to do something that dangerous. There aren't too many good
reasons to be editing a file, without the help of the file
system to present it to you.

Come'on, for someone with your skills, typing "best hex disk editor" in
Google shouldn't be too hard. We already know the best one is WinHex,
but it's expensive. Free ones include HxD (very basic) and Active@
(looks good! see http://www.disk-editor.org/). There are others...

Best Regards,

--
! _\|/_ Sylvain /
! (o o) Memberavid-Suzuki-Fdn/EFF/Red+Cross/SPCA/Planetary-Society
oO-( )-Oo POLITICS: Poly == many, Tics == Blood sucking parasites.

B00ze wrote:
On 2017-10-07 16:40, Paul wrote:

I'd really like a disk editor, that can tell me what file
I'm on top of when hex editing. But I've not seen such a thing
for some time. I still use a hex editor, and with a utility like
NFI.exe, I should be able to compute the start address if I ever
needed to do something that dangerous. There aren't too many good
reasons to be editing a file, without the help of the file
system to present it to you.

Come'on, for someone with your skills, typing "best hex disk editor" in
Google shouldn't be too hard. We already know the best one is WinHex,
but it's expensive. Free ones include HxD (very basic) and Active@
(looks good! see http://www.disk-editor.org/). There are others...

Best Regards,


HxD doesn't identify the file you're on top of,
while opening a disk for raw access.

The pictures I can see in the Active@ one, I can't
see an example there either, of a "walk and talk"
interface. They show it editing $MFT, but did that
happen by walking over $MFT, or was there a menu
item to open it ?

http://www.disk-editor.org/

The Norton one, was one of the few where the filename
you were on-top-of, showed at the top. And it was
a kind of "educational" mode.

HxD does everything I need, in the sense that it
supports "search", which is frequently enough for
my purposes (of locating whether something exists
or not, on a disk drive). I've never tried my
hand at editing $MFT, because it could be
changing underneath me. Like take an OS like Windows 10,
where the OS never stops messing around, and at
random times. Editing the $MFT on a "data" partition
would potentially be safer, although I don't know why
I'd want to do it. The simplest operation you could
do on the $MFT, would be flipping the undelete byte.
Maybe they dis-mount the volume while messing with
the $MFT.

Paul

On Sat, 07 Oct 2017 13:02:40 -0700, pyotr filipivich
wrote:


Was in a store the other day, just looking. Norton Securities was for
sale, and that got me to recalling when I was using Norton Utilities
for all manner of cool, neat and gee-whiz stuff.
But Norton Utilities was not for sale - at least not there.

Does anyone know if it still is, or if not what a reasonable
alternative to it?

Not really equivalent, but Glary Utilities does *some* of the things
that Norton Utilities used to do. Another program that used to do
similar stuff was PC Tools.


--
Steve Hayes
http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
http://khanya.wordpress.com

In microsoft.public.windowsxp.general, on Sat, 07 Oct 2017 16:40:48
-0400, Paul wrote:

pyotr filipivich wrote:
Was in a store the other day, just looking. Norton Securities was for
sale, and that got me to recalling when I was using Norton Utilities
for all manner of cool, neat and gee-whiz stuff.
But Norton Utilities was not for sale - at least not there.

Does anyone know if it still is, or if not what a reasonable
alternative to it?

tschus
pyotr

It depends on what part of Norton Utilities you considered
as an essential utility.

My copy, from the Win98 era, had a disk editor for FAT32. On
the side of the box, the advertising would tell you that
you needed a later version of the software, if you wanted
a disk editor for NTFS. I suppose such a thing exists, but
I don't recollect seeing pictures of it.

Many other functions, could be covered by some other specific
product, rather than by a competing suite of programs.

A review from one of the commercial sites, should tell you
what the competition has to offer.

https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2371157,00.asp

https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2371155,00.asp

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norton_Utilities

But let's face it, these are packages for people who have
money to waste.

I'd really like a disk editor, that can tell me what file
I'm on top of when hex editing. But I've not seen such a thing
for some time.

Norton didn't do that either. What did?

I still use a hex editor, and with a utility like
NFI.exe, I should be able to compute the start address if I ever
needed to do something that dangerous. There aren't too many good
reasons to be editing a file, without the help of the file
system to present it to you.

Paul

In microsoft.public.windowsxp.general, on Sat, 7 Oct 2017 15:43:55
-0600, "Bill in Co" wrote:

pyotr filipivich wrote:
Was in a store the other day, just looking. Norton Securities was for
sale, and that got me to recalling when I was using Norton Utilities
for all manner of cool, neat and gee-whiz stuff.
But Norton Utilities was not for sale - at least not there.

Does anyone know if it still is, or if not what a reasonable
alternative to it?

tschus
pyotr

Well, I see Paul gave some suggestions for alternatives, plus I think Norton
became more bloatware when it sold out to Symantec. I think you may be
remembering the days long past (like a decade ago) when it really was a
great utility.

What ever happened to Ed Norton, anyhow?

Paul wrote:
B00ze wrote:
On 2017-10-07 16:40, Paul wrote:

I'd really like a disk editor, that can tell me what file
I'm on top of when hex editing. But I've not seen such a thing
for some time. I still use a hex editor, and with a utility like
NFI.exe, I should be able to compute the start address if I ever
needed to do something that dangerous. There aren't too many good
reasons to be editing a file, without the help of the file
system to present it to you.

Come'on, for someone with your skills, typing "best hex disk editor"
in Google shouldn't be too hard. We already know the best one is
WinHex, but it's expensive. Free ones include HxD (very basic) and
Active@ (looks good! see http://www.disk-editor.org/). There are
others...

Best Regards,


HxD doesn't identify the file you're on top of,
while opening a disk for raw access.

The pictures I can see in the Active@ one, I can't
see an example there either, of a "walk and talk"
interface. They show it editing $MFT, but did that
happen by walking over $MFT, or was there a menu
item to open it ?

http://www.disk-editor.org/

The Norton one, was one of the few where the filename
you were on-top-of, showed at the top. And it was
a kind of "educational" mode.

HxD does everything I need, in the sense that it
supports "search", which is frequently enough for
my purposes (of locating whether something exists
or not, on a disk drive). I've never tried my
hand at editing $MFT, because it could be
changing underneath me. Like take an OS like Windows 10,
where the OS never stops messing around, and at
random times. Editing the $MFT on a "data" partition
would potentially be safer, although I don't know why
I'd want to do it. The simplest operation you could
do on the $MFT, would be flipping the undelete byte.
Maybe they dis-mount the volume while messing with
the $MFT.

Paul

I dug out the Norton software I had, and installed
it in a VM, and DiskEdit in there is an MSDOS level
utility. And once I had the name of it, I could go
looking for pictures of what it looked like. That
wasn't the one.

Whatever editor I was using, had a larger X*Y matrix
on the screen. Much larger than DiskEdit. Which suggests
it came after the year 2000 or so.

I tried searching on pictures of disk editors, and *nothing*
matches the picture I have in mind. So now I don't know
what that utility was.

Paul

micky wrote:
In microsoft.public.windowsxp.general, on Sat, 7 Oct 2017 15:43:55
-0600, "Bill in Co" wrote:

pyotr filipivich wrote:
Was in a store the other day, just looking. Norton Securities was for
sale, and that got me to recalling when I was using Norton Utilities
for all manner of cool, neat and gee-whiz stuff.
But Norton Utilities was not for sale - at least not there.

Does anyone know if it still is, or if not what a reasonable
alternative to it?

tschus
pyotr
Well, I see Paul gave some suggestions for alternatives, plus I think Norton
became more bloatware when it sold out to Symantec. I think you may be
remembering the days long past (like a decade ago) when it really was a
great utility.

What ever happened to Ed Norton, anyhow?

I think Jackie Gleason put him in a head lock.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Honeymooners

Peter Norton was Ed's younger brother.

Here, he doesn't have the geek glasses, like the picture
on the software box.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Norton

Paul