I believe that NProtect is a Norton Recycle Bin that's intended to prevent inadvertent permanent deletion of stuff you might lose if you just dumped the normal recycle bin. It should be safe to just empty the folder, and you should be able to disable NProtect in Norton settings.

The folder probably has a copy of everything you've ever deleted, and if it's stuffed it probably indicates you're of a flighty sort who saves a lot of stuff you don't really want (tweak-tweak).

NProtect doesn't appear in newer Norton versions, so far as I've seen. It may be available but doesn't turn on by default in my last three versions.

The slowdown of your computer during scans can be eliminated if you can upgrade to the latest Norton Internet Security 2008. It runs Quick Scans continuously in background. When one scan is finished it starts another; but it only runs when the system is idle. It runs a full system scan when scheduled (I run full system weekly) but pauses when anything else is going on, and runs only when the system is idle. The only evidence that it's there is when it pops up a notice that a scan has finished.

My current install started with NIS 2005, and although they don't advertise it prominently, with the "Internet Security" packages they generally allow you to update to the next newer versions as they come out. I've gone throught 2005, 2006, 2007 and now 2008 as free upgrades on my original store purchase.

You do have to pay the annual "rental" but the store package allows you to use ONE COPY on up to three computers, so it's actually quite a bit cheaper for me (I have three computers) than any cheaper programs (and a lot less trouble than any free ones, IMO).

I don't know what the update policy is on the "bare bones AV" versions, but I've had good protection from the "Internet Security" package.

I haven't had, or used, any of the other Norton "utilities" for several years (decades?) since I can't find anything in the package descriptions that can't be done as well using built-in WinXP/Win2K/Vista tools. They were "necessary" when Win98 was king of the hill, but Utilities and System Works don't show me anything I need. (They may have some nice stuff; but they don't describe it on the box if it's there.)

About the only thing that I'm sure would be useful, beyond NIS, would be Ghost; but I've managed backups that satisfy me with XCOPY, and Vista has a built-in "full system backup" (it's probably in WinXP too?).

John