Symantec Endpoint Protection 12.1.2 (Windows)

Important note: this document is designed for Local Support Providers (LSPs). The user-level Symantec Endpoint Protection document is here and includes general availability, configuration, documentation, and support information. This page was last modified on Thursday, 03-Jan-2013 14:20:26 EST.

Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition is recommended for use with Windows workstations at the University. It checks hard drives, removable media, and email attachments for known computer viruses and removes any that it finds, including macro viruses. It also monitors the computer and notifies the user of any infection attempts. These products are site licensed at Penn and available free of charge to members of the Penn community.

Some Schools and Centers manage Symantec's Windows updates via their own network servers. That is, the School or Center will control, monitor, and update the virus updates from their network server.

The software available from this page is configured so that virus update files are managed directly from Symantec's web site.

For information regarding current viruses, see the Virus alerts page.

Windows Security Center Issues

Microsoft obsoleted a reporting protocol with their July 2009 updates (they intended to do so in September 2009) which allowed applications such as Symantec Endpoint Protection 11.0.4 to report their status to Windows Security Center in Windows Vista Service Pack 1. Unfortunately, they failed to convince developers to switch to the new protocol. Consequently, Vista SP1 users running Symantec Endpoint Protection began seeing a red shield in their system tray and this message in the Malware Protection tab:

Symantec Endpoint Protection is on but is reporting its status to Windows Security Center in a format that is no longer supported. Use the program's automatic updating feature, or contact the program manufacturer for an updated version.

This message is confusing to many users, especially because there was no updated version of Symantec Endpoint Protection available. The fix is to upgrade to Windows Vista Service Pack 2, which actually reverts to the obsoleted reporting protocol. Updating Symantec Endpoint Protection to 11.0.5 or above uses the new protocol.

Symantec Endpoint Protection 12.1 License Expiration Issue

Providers across campus have reported license expirations of Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP) 12.1 for Windows when installed from the "Pennified" installer (which shipped on the Fall 2011 PennConnect DVD and was downloadable from Supported Products). Information Systems & Computing (ISC) has verified this issue. Providers who installed from the Symantec "factory" installers for SEP 12.1 are not seeing the issue.

ISC has released a small installer for the license file which is available here.

Windows 8 Compatibility

Symantec Endpoint Protection 12.1.2 is fully compatible with Windows 8.

Download

• Download the "Pennified" Symantec Endpoint Protection 12.1.2 installer for Windows 8/7/Vista/XP in standard .EXE format

Many additional Symantec downloads are available from the University's Enterprise Antivirus Applications page.

Related resources

• Virus alerts page.
• Penn's Computer virus web site.
• The Site Licenses and Volume Discounts web site.
• The Symantec web site.