Hoggy
I've read your post and found some of it very interesting, more later. First, I'd like to mention that turning off worm protection solves the Norton pop-up problem but could leave your PC vulnerable to other things that you may be unaware of.
Let me explain, whenever you run LW, as you know, you open several connection ports on your PC and these ports are attacked by various bots, worms, etc. In other words, you not only get your downloads and send uploads you also attract all sorts of potential trouble listening out for and jumping into ports open by P2P apps.
So I believe your safest bet would be to reconfigure Norton as previously advised.
OK, now the interesting stuff, you have several anti-spyware apps running on your PC:
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I also have Ad-Aware, NoAdware, Xoftspy and Windows defender installed.
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Ad-Aware is well respected, NoAdware has a more dubious beginning:
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Note on NoAdware: NoAdware was listed on this page http://www.spywarewarrior.com/rogue_anti-spyware.htm because of concerns with false positives and the use of aggressive, deceptive advertising (1, 2, 3) including exploitation of the name "ad-aware" (1). Earlier versions of NoAdware were also the same underlying application as Adware Hitman, Consumer Identity, Protect Your Identity, SpyBan, SpywareAssassin, Spyware C.O.P., SpywareKilla, The Adware Hunter, & TheSpywareKiller. Over the past few months, NoAdware has taken aggressive steps to reign in its affiliates (who were primarily responsible for the unsavory advertising) and released a new version of NoAdware (version 3.0) that addresses our concerns with false positves. Given these changes we can no longer regard NoAdware as "rogue/suspect" anti-spyware.
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This product may now be clean but I don’t believe “a leopard can change its spots”.
As for Xoftspy, this was Spyware Warrior’s opinion in April 2004:
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XOFTSPY - Don't buy & here's why
I have installed xoftspy and reviewed it. Here is my findings and what my thoughts are
1. PARETOLOGIC is the website the software is installed from. However, any business IMO that registers their site under Domains By Proxy in order to keep their true identity a secret is not a company I want to give money to.
2. The site is big on ad hype and getting affiliates to sell for them.
3. Domain names that are advertising the xoftpsy are the same that I was collecting about 3 weeks ago and then they were advertising the Spyhunter.
4. The sites below are all registered under Domains By Proxy so the real owners are not shown. The IP's show they are either one or more virutal servers that can have multiple domain names per 1 IP address.
Bottom Line: Would you give your money to someone who you cannot find out about. There is no statements of who or how the reference file of adware is updated. And like any Pyramid scheme, the main push is to get affiliates to sell for you, so much of the ad hype is directed in that area instead of supporting the end user that buys the software.
IMO: This is a scam.
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I have no comment on Windows Defender as this product is unlikely to have the same problems as Xoftspy or NoAdware.
UK Bob