Norton Ghost 14.0

Pros: Does disk backup and copy while the OS is running on those disks.

Cons: Kills Windows 7 if you try to force the installation.
Can't backup to a network location.

Summary: I purchased Norton Ghost 14 in October last year (2009) to do backup of my business computer.
The first bad experience happened when I upgraded my computer from Vista to Windows 7 and had to un-install Ghost 14 because it was incompatible with Win7. I tought that Norton would have a patch to fix this so I forced the installation of Ghost 14 and couldn't boot Windows 7 anymore. I had to use SafeMode to un-install Ghost 14.

I called Norton about this and they first told me that i had to BUY the upgrade to Ghost 15 to be able to use it on Windows 7. After more than an hour arguying on the phone they gave me a free upgrade. But come on, that should be automatic : how can they dare to sell software 2 weeks before Windows 7 is released which doesn't work and then make you pay for the upgrade! This is a rip off.

What I want to do backup my data to another computer through a shared network folder.
Problem is that once I do that, if the other computer is turned OFF or not connected to the network Norton Ghost won't event start. It hangs for 15 minutes when you launch it and then hangs again for another 15 minutes if you try to do anything.

Over the past few weeks I spent several days working on this with Norton's technical support. They got me to turn services off and on, un-install, re-install (with the same options duhhh).

The answer I got today from them was : "You can't do that sir. The network drive must always be available. Otherwise Ghost can not work.".
I couldn't believe they would dare to say that... This would mean that if anything happens to any of the network backup location I used in the past, Ghost will stop working... How can this be acceptable for a backup software!

The botom line is if you need to backup your data to a network location: STAY AWAY from Norton Ghost 14 and 15!