Actually DaveO, Norton is the one that first got me started on this route. You puts it in, it works perfectly for about 3 days - it is supposed to have a subroutine that stops Outlook disconnecting as I described. Then it starts doing it. So you check with Norton, and get the official workround - disable scanning of outgoing email. That works for three days. Then that stops letting you send mail. Then the only way you can send mail at all is to turn the antivirus off completely, get the mail, and then scan it.

Then it stops letting you get incoming mail at all.

Believe me, I spent hours on the phone, uninstalled and reistalled like a yoyo, and even cleaned the system with format c 3 times - and after each reistall, same pattern. It lulls you into believing it works, and then stops.

It refused to let me load the antivirus only without the firewall, which might have let me get incoming mail!

It (another paid for copy) refused completely to load onto my daughter's system. But because it would load onto their system the shop refused to give her money back. That's a bad waste of £50 for a student as she then was.

I've had it with Norton Security.

McAfee was even worse. Similar things and a printer conflict arose. I rang McAfee. They said "That's a known issue" - and I said "What's the fix?" They said "there isn't one".

Try Panda. At least it lets you work.