Norton Utilities

Norton Utilities

Symantec Norton Utilities 15.0.0.122 running on Windows Vista

Developer(s) Symantec

Stable release 16.0.0.126 / 26 August 2012; 9 years ago

Operating system Windows, Classic Mac OS, Mac OS X, Unix

Type Utility software

License Trialware

Website symantec.com/norton/norton-utilities

Norton Utilities at a retail store

Norton Utilities is a utility software suite designed to help analyze, configure, optimize
and maintain a computer. The current version of Norton Utilities is Norton Utilities 16 for
Windows XP/Vista/7/8 was released 26 October 2012.
Peter Norton published the first version for DOS, The Norton Utilities, Release 1, in
1982. Release 2 came out about a year later, subsequent to the first hard drives for the
IBM PC line. Peter Norton's company was sold to Symantec (now known
as NortonLifeLock) in 1990 and Peter Norton himself no longer has any connection to
the brand or company.

Norton Utilities for DOS and Windows 3.1[edit]

Version 1.0[edit]
The initial 1982 release supported DOS 1.x and featured the UNERASE utility. This
allowed files to be undeleted by restoring the first letter of the directory entry (a
workaround of the FAT file system used in DOS). The UNERASE utility was what
launched NU on its path to success. Quoting Peter Norton, "Why did The Norton Utilities
become such popular software? Well, industry wisdom has it that software becomes
standard either by providing superior capabilities or by solving problems that were
previously unsolvable. In 1982, when I sat down at my PC to write Unerase, I was
solving a common problem to which there was no readily available solution." [1]
14 programs were included, on three floppy disks, list price $80: [2][3]

 UnErase, recovers erased files

 FileFix, repairs damaged files
 DiskLook, complete floppy disk displays and maps
 SecMod, easy changes to floppy disks
 FileHide, interactive hidden file control
 BatHide, automatic hidden file control
 TimeMark, displays date, time, elapsed time
 ScrAtr, sets DOS to work in any colors
 Reverse, work in black on white
 Clear, clears the screen for clarity
 FileSort, keeps floppy disk files by date or name
 DiskOpt, speeds floppy disk access
 Beep, causes the PC speaker to beep
 Print, prints files
Version 2.0[edit]
The main feature of this DOS 2.x compatible version was FILEFIND, used for searching
for files.[citation needed] This 1983 release added hard disk support, and the PRINT program was
renamed LPRINT to avoid conflict with the DOS command introduced in MS-DOS 2.0
as PRINT.COM.[4] Following this release Norton became Utilities Editor of PC Magazine.
[5]

The executable files were compressed with Realia's Spacemaker. [6][7]

Version 3.0[edit]
This version, copyrighted 1984 but dated 21 January 1985, included Beep, Directory
Sort, Disk Test, File Attributes, File Find, File Size, Line Print, List Directories, Screen
Attributes, System Information, Text Search, Time Mark, Volume Label, Wipe Disk and
Wipe File.
Version 3.1[edit]
This 1986 version added the Quick UnErase (QU) and Unremove Directory (UD)
programs.
Version 4.0[edit]

Norton Utilities 4.0 for DOS

Release 4.0 (1987, list $99.95) added four new programs: [8]

 Ask, used for batch file programming

 File Info, add descriptions up to 65 characters long to each file
 Norton Change Directory, displays a graphic directory tree; change, remove,
rename or make directories
 Norton Integrator, a menu system to tie the utilities together. Previously the
utilities were accessed by typing the command name (usually a cryptic 2
character name such as FF) at the DOS prompt.
Version 4.0 Advanced Edition[edit]
This version (list $150), released simultaneously with 4.0 standard edition, was dated 15
May 1987. It added Speed Disk, a disk defragmenter, and Format Recover.
Version 4.5 Advanced Edition[edit]

Norton Integrator from Norton Utilities 4.5 for DOS

Norton Disk Doctor was the major addition in this 1988 release. [9] It also includes
Wipedisk; Wipefile, a Batch Enhancer and a sector level disk editor; a system
information diagnostic utility and a disk caching program (NCACHE), which was
between 10 - 50% faster than Microsoft's SMARTDrive when properly configured.
Version 5.0[edit]
Release 5.0 added new features, including Disk Editor, a utility to perform low level
formatting on hard disks and changes such as password protection on the more
“dangerous” utilities. It also included a licensed version of the 4DOS replacement for
COMMAND.COM called NDOS. This version also allowed the choice of “classic” names
(such as FF.EXE) or longer names (such as FINDFAST.EXE); these were configurable
in the updated version of the Norton Integrator menu system.
Version 6.0[edit]

Norton Utilities 6.0 for DOS

Norton Utilities 6.0 supports DOS 5 and Windows 3.1. It includes Windows Program
Manager support, but the tools are still DOS-based, so a set of icons were supplied.
It includes Norton Disk Doctor, Disk Editor, Disk Tools, Speed Disk, Norton Cache, Disk
Monitor, Diskreet, NDisk, System Information, NDOS.[10]
The speed of Speed Disk was improved over the previous release.
Diskreet supports Data Encryption Standard.
System Information now includes more detailed information on installed system.
UnErase takes advantage of DOS 5.0's Delete Tracking and Mirror File features to
recover data.[11] However, MS-DOS 5.0 added a new UNDELETE.exe program, licensed
from Norton competitor Central Point Software,[12] which took advantage of the same
Delete Sentry control and Deletion-tracking files. (The ERASE command is an alias for
the DEL (Delete) command in the DOS command line). Windows 95's Recycle Bin soon
further reduced the need for UnErase.
Version 7.0[edit]
Release 7.0 supports MS-DOS 6.0, DoubleSpace, Stacker and SuperStor disk
compression tools.
Tools includes Norton Disk Doctor, Disk Editor, Undelete, SmartCan, NDOS, System
Information, File Find, Norton Change Directory.[13]
Speed Disk remained as well, although SPEEDISK.exe was licensed by Microsoft and
incorporated into MS-DOS as DEFRAG.exe in MS-DOS 6.0 onward.[14]
Release 7.0 had revised user interfaces for the utilities that feature a menu-driven user
interface. Also some of these tools now did not need to run in full-screen-mode but just
displayed a window in the center of the screen, like the disk formatter or the disk
duplicator utility.
Disk Editor now includes Advanced Recovery Mode.
Version 8.0 for DOS/Windows 3.x[edit]
Release 8.0 was nearly the same as 7.0, but added Windows 3.1 utilities.
DOS Utilities include Norton Disk Doctor, System Information, Change Directory,
FileFind, Diskreet, DUPDISK, File Fix, NDOS, Batch Enhancer, Norton Integrator,
Speed Disk.[15]
Windows utilities include Norton Disk Doctor, Speed Disk, System Watch, File
Compare, INI Tracker, INI Tuner, INI editor, INI Advisor