One reason why I dislike Laptops...

[Housyasei-san]

Just 2 months ago I have gotten a brand new Laptop. It had some stuff pre-installed, like Norton Anti-Virus and whatnot. A few days ago, Norton expired and told me to renew it by the Register Key on the back of the CD case. Well, I'm screwed there as the Laptop didn't come with a Norton CD of any kind. Same goes for Windows Office, I can't use Power Point or Word without registering with the Product Key "located on the back of the CD case or on the Certificate of Authenticity". Another thing the laptop didn't come with. I have the same kind of Norton CD for the other computers in my house, but it still doesn't work. Oy vey....

[Thy]

They were just trial versions. Every computer has them preinstalled, not just laptops. You have to buy the real products to actually use them. You can go and buy them online to get the keys or use some alternatives.

For Norton, well, there's a lot of alternatives. Just Google for stuff.
For Office, I like to use "OpenOffice.org" (that's the site and the name of the programs. It's all open source and I prefer it over Office. Plus they have some other stuff, like a vector image program and a weird math thing that I haven't figured out yet. They work the same, if not better, than their Office counterparts and they have a few new options. Plus they seem compatible with any similar program.

[Chris]

Popular alternatives to NAV (which sucks anyway) are AVG Free (http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=2&url=http%3A//free.grisoft.com/&ei=UZYNQ-mYF7fORJqsvcUF) and AntiVir (http://www.free-av.com).