I've been getting more and more questions about how to silently install NIS 2005, because it appears most of the original threads have been either deleted or lost.

This guide assumes you have a valid, activated copy of NIS 2005 already up and running. If you do not, stop now, do a normal installation, and activate it.

There's basically three things that need to be done to install NIS 2005 silently. First, you need to edit the registry to insert your key. Second, you need to copy one very important file to the proper location. Finally, you need to silently install the program.

Here's the .reg file text for entering the product key into the registry:



Just put your actual key in the place of all the X's. Name it whatever you want - I happen to use NIS.reg. Silently register it using this command:



where %Source% represents the path to the NIS.reg file.

Second, you need to restart your computer in safe mode and copy the following file:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared\CCPD-LC\symlcrst.dll

You cannot copy this file if you are not in Safe Mode. Copy it to a folder for future use.

You then xcopy it back into the proper place, or do whatever else you want to get that file prepopulated. If you want a truly silently installed and activated NIS 2005, you MUST make sure that the file C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared\CCPD-LC\symlcrst.dll is present BEFORE the NIS 2005 installation begins. Personally, I created a SFX RAR that extracts it to the proper location.

The most important information:

SYMLCRST.DLL WILL ONLY ACTIVATE NIS 2005 ON THE COMPUTER WHERE THE ORIGINAL ACTIVATED INSTALLATION WAS LOCATED - YOU CAN'T COPY THE SYMLCRST.DLL FROM COMPUTER A TO COMPUTER B TO BYPASS ACTIVATION!

Finally, you need the installation source for NIS 2005 that corresponds with your product key. From my experience with NAV, you probably won't be able to use a downloaded key with a retail CD source.

If you have the downloaded source, extract it to a folder named NIS2005 with WinRAR. If you have a CD source, copy all the files from the CD to a folder named NIS2005. (If you have a CD source, there are several files you can delete to save room - delete anything having to do with installing Internet Explorer, Adobe Reader, or the MSI installer packages.)

In the past, I used to recommend using WinRAR to prepopulate the Norton Internet Security URL Lists file in the install source with the most current version of the file, because the download size was so large. However, newer versions of the URL Lists file are much smaller, and since about June of 2005 you do not get updates to the URL Lists file if you prepopulate with URL Lists file. Therefore, I no longer recommend prepopulating the URL Lists file. You can also replace the Live Update software in the install package with the newest version, but it only saves about 2 MB of download time later.

Here's the syntax for silently installing the program:



where %Source% represents the path to your source files. If you need to conserve space, you can create a SFX RAR, that will extract to a predefined foler. I personally have my NIS 2005 install source down to 32 MB as a SFX RAR.

That's about it. It's not exactly complicated or mystical, you just need to have patience and a little time to tinker. You will still need to download and install updates that now total almost 35 megabytes, but unless you have dialup that does not take too long. (You'll have to reboot after the installation, so that you can access LiveUpdate.)

You can use essentially this same method to silently install NAV 2005. You'll need to get the correct registry entry, but otherwise the silent install syntax is the same with the exception that the install executable has a different name (NAVSETUP.EXE, I think.)

Finally, in an attempt to hopefully increase the ability to find this page in a Google search:
NORTON ANTIVIRUS INTERNET SECURITY NAV NIS 2005

Thanks !

I really appriciate this, will try it out as soon as possible.

Is it possible for you to explain how you shrinked NIS to 32 MB ??

/Kent

If you have a downloaded install of NIS 2005, and you already have installed the latest version of Windows Installer, you can delete the two files related to Windows Installer that are packaged with the downloaded install. Additionally, the URLLists.exe file is not included in the downloaded installation source. When you SFX RAR the NIS2005 folder, it comes in around 32 MB.

If you have the disk-based install source, you probably can't get it quite that low, because URLLists.exe is included in the install source. Since, after installation, you have to download an updated URLLists.exe anyway, you could experiment with deleting the URLLists.exe file (it's found in /Support/URLLists, or something like that) - I'm not going to guarantee any success, though! As I indicated above, if you have the CD install source, you can delete the Internet Explorer and Adobe Reader installs from the CD as long as you're running IE 6 and some version of Adobe Reader.

Basically, in order to make it ~ 32 MB, you just need to compress it, with WinRAR, WinZip, 7-Zip, etc.

The activation doesnt seem to work properly.

After installation and reboot NIS starts the installation and tells me to activate

I have done all your steps...

Ps. I managed to shrink the cd source to 61 Mb Ds.

You copied symlcrst.dll from an activated installation of NIS 2005, running on the same machine where you are trying to install, correct? And you have the install set up in the exact order set forth above - first put in the registry entry, next copy symlcrst.dll to the proper location, and finally install NIS 2005?

If you're following those steps, in that order, it should work for you...just play around with it a little more. But be careful about activating - if you manually activate too many times, Symantec's servers will stop permitting you to activate that particular product key.