Evil software

I've just spent nearly twelve hours spread over two days trying to get an AOL-DSL system back on its feet and Norton Internet Security 2004 loaded on the same system. I don't really know which is worse, AOL or Norton, but they both have top slots on my to-be-avoided-at-all-costs list.
At the beginning, the computer, running 98SE, had 126 viruses and 3 trojans to be dealt with. Protection amounted to a copy of Norton AV 2001whose latest virus definition was from February of this year. OK, only about two hours to get the AV updated and the viruses wiped out. The trojans took another hour or so. Meanwhile, the owner of this electronic waste dump had wandered off to attend to other matters, as unconcerned about what it was taking to repair all this damage as he was when doing the damage in the first place. Alone now, I decided to delete a few programs and see if I could somehow reclaim a bit more than the current 20% free disk space. I also deleted the outdated Norton. Cool, I'm up to 30% free space, run a quick defrag and I'm ready to install the new Norton. 45 minutes later and I'm still looking at only 40% defragmented. The sun is setting, the day is disappearing, my life is wasting away.
To hell with it. Cancel the defrag and start the Norton install. After the first install, I couldn't get online, all the desktop icons were dead and the system froze. All right, delete and reinstall. I have a rule of threes...installs and rebuilds will only work right after the 3rd attempt. Sure enough, the second install doesn't "take" either. Third install, nothing. Fourth, fifth and sixth the same. Screw this, it's staying uninstalled and I warn him not to go online until I figure this out.
Today I actually got Norton to install on the first attempt (of the day, anyway). Finally, AV is all in place and AOL actually goes online. I hate Norton. I hate AOL.

For all this I didn't get thanked or paid, but I did get to listen to the owner bitch about how frustrating all this was for him. (?)

Oh, did I mention this guy is family?