Trend Micro Internet Security Pro

I upgraded from TMIS Pro 2008 to 2009 on a clean system (freshly loaded Vista after disk erase) and immediately started having recurring Blue Screen failures. After much investigation and tweaking reverted to 2008 and the problem disappeared. 3 days later and I am still waiting for a response from technical support. Don't buy this product until the bugs are worked out.

Installed this on my home server system (Dell Dimensions AMD X2-6000 with XP Media Center with 2GB RAM / 1TB HD). I followed all the directions carefully by having previous antiviral software removed and rebooted. Then proceeded with the install of this product. The install went smoothly and almost finished. Then I assume the program started and my system rebooted (I've disabled blue screens for reboots). I thought okay, should be fine on the reboot. Well the system rebooted and windows started loading but then it would reach a point where the system errored again and reboot. Pattern was infinite, I powered down and powered back on with the same pattern.

Omigod I thought, this is terrible. Apparently this program is causing a catastrophic error to the point I can't even get windows to complete loading. So I decide it's best to boot into safemode to remove the program. Should be easy. Got into safemode and loaded the uninstall control panel. Clicked to uninstall. Wouldn't let me. It tells me this particular vendor's installer cannot be uninstalled under safe mode. Ridiculous! What kind of idiot makes an installer do this? I kept trying to no avail. I was starting to panic thinking my system was hosed by this commercial virus (that's what a virus does). Fortunately, I was able to roll back to the last known good configuration which prevented this program from loading.

Horrible installer for this program. Haven't seen anything like this in ages and to think this is commercial software? Crazy. My home server is very stable by the way, with minimal software and runs without fault for weeks, even months at a time. I refuse to go through this pattern of insanity, plus wasting hours of my time, just to install it on another PC to see how it works. Beware.

I've been using Trend for years, but after my experience with this release, that may change. I installed the software on a 32bit, dual core XP-Pro laptop, 64bit quad core Vista Ultimate desktop, and a 32bit single core XP-Pro desktop. The last install had issues - it nuked my Cisco VPN client software (same version installed on the laptop), after installing I got an error about not being able to complete the pattern update. After a re-boot, I got an error about the firewall being disabled - "fix now" didn't work, and after a few calls to support and a half dozen re-installs I was at the point of running their "collect statistics" through the tistool - I never did get the statistics logs because on re-boot my PC went to 100% CPU usage. After getting out of debug mode, I got a message about my VPN client being configured (??? been using it for days), then another re-boot, VPN nuked again, but hey, the firewall stayed active. Re-install the VPN yet again, and it finally seems to be working. Now if I could just figure out why their browser tool bar intermittently freezes my browser (FireFox or IE) while reading yahoo e-mail ... Doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

In a sense, I feel like something of a techno-Goldilocks. Microsoft OneCare had all the features that I liked, yet it couldn't function well with my wireless router and home network. McAfee Total Protection 2008 seemed fine, and then I couldn't get the darn thing to register (thus preventing the necessary updates) More so, I was so frustrated with McAfee's tech support that I finally sent the program back, with a long letter of explanation that unfortunately was never acknowledged. And Norton Antivirus was a similar disappointment after a couple of months of use (it seems that it doesn't play well with MS Vista updates... at all).
So now, here I am, a still happy user of Trend Micro Internet Security Pro after two full months. Is it possible that I've found techno security happiness?

The features are top notch, network management within my AT&T U-verse firewall, active web site security (yes, I've had a couple framesets blocked as dangerous and I greatly appreciate that). The regular scans have initiated as scheduled, sometimes finding a few suspect tracking cookies and once something more malevolent.

I particularly like the remote file lock feature, that I can use to store particularly sensitive documents, protecting them should the notebook get stolen. And the registry cleaner is excellent, very fast and effective.

I had no problems installing it, and contrary to some, I've not noticed any resource degradation (and I'm always paying attention to that).

So, knowing full well that in three previous purchases, the my product/user relationship went south as soon as I published a glowing review; I have to give this a careful 5 stars. If things go wrong down the road, I'll come back in and update this, but for some reason I think that this might turn out to be just right!

I have been using Norton before trying Trend Micro Internet Security for as long as I can remember, and I'm sorry to say that I think it's going to stay that way. I don't hate this product at all and it does include many more things that Norton does not. I just don't feel I need them and it really slows down my computer. I would compare it to Norton 360. The Norton Live and the anti-virus protection is all I need. Someone who does a lot with finances may find this item well worth while.

There was a little problem for me with the install because it was a different product than the Norton 360. It kept de-installing itself even when I de-insalled the Norton. I wasn't sure why because I was following the directions. I chalked it up to not being extremely computer savvy. But, I noticed that after Googling, I wasn't the only one with this problem. It would stop in the middle of loading and it would also shut down my computer. I've never had that problem with the other product, so I started getting a little nervous. But, I was determined to get this to work. When I did, I wish I didn't. It was S-L-O-W and really not acting like it always does. In the end, I uninstalled it and bought another year of my "usual", which is fine with me. I love it for what I use my computer for.

If you need all of the "extras" that are included in this little box or if you do finances, then again, I'm sure you might want to give it a try. I on the other hand am going to pass and stick with what I'm used to. Thank you Vine Program for giving me the opportunity and I will continue to bring you my honest opinion.