I have Vista Home Basic 32-bit SP2.
This is what I did to follow you guys advice:

  1. With Windows search, I typed ‘Norton’, and then ‘Symantec’, and erased a couple of items it found.

  2. I run CCcleaner, and since I am not too familiar with this software,I didnt erase everything it proposed, but only references to Norton, and ‘firewall’ it found in the register.

  3. I uninstalled AIS with the avast uninstalling utility.

  4. I downloaded and installed a fresh copy of AIS (not the beta), but it failed again to install the firewall driver.