HI DJNafey, thanks for replying. First, regarding the cdrom, my drive is fine, the problem is tried installing the firewall from cdrom I have but it does not upload correctly since the defective files are already on the computer. As for the antivirus program, it was already on my computer when i purchased it and i continued the subscription after the trial period was over. when i had graphics problem with the computer, tech support at gateway said the only way for me to fix the problem was to do system restore. of course at that point noone told me it was probably spyware. anyway, i restored the computer and when the original software was installed back on it got attached by spyware. so, now i ran spy sweeper and got rid of the spyware but the installed norton antivirus is on there and i can't get it off. since the norton antivirus came with the computer, i do not have a cdrom for it but i have a subscription. i can call symantec and ask them to send me a cdrom since i have a subscription but if i use them to fix the bad installation, they'll charge me. anyway, hope that explains it better.

i tried what you said and there is a symantec folder but not EXE file...mostly DLL files.

Any other ideas are greatly appreciated.

Thanks!