Call customer support and they should fix this for you. I thought that they had already corrected this issue.

I had the same problem. Also I received the same misleading help from tech support. I finally gave up on these useless bums and solved the problem myself by loading the Product Key on the Ghost disk that came with my machine. (As I recall, the message stating that my version had expired asked for a Product Key.)

 

So far all is OK. But I sometimes have nightmares about the future. Last time I called phone support I waited 45 min. on hold. This is "Special XPS" support? At the very least they could give us an expected hold time when we call!!!

Sorry to hear your problem persists. The best I can recall (this was maybe 2mo. ago), I played around with either 1) the message saying Ghost expired or 2) I clicked on the Ghost icon in the Task Bar and this lead to a message saying that I should enter the product key. Then everything was okay. I wish I could be more specific but that is all I can recall. If this doesn't work I would remove Ghost (using the tool on the Symantec site) and then reload. Good luck.

Can you please give more info on just what customer service should have done?     I've been over the invoice and the purchase system many, many times.  There was NOTHING about Ghost being a trial version.   But it keeps expiring on my system, and live chat claims I have not paid for it, even though I showed them the system invoice showing the line item for ghost 10 that had NOTHING about a trial on it.     I don't recall the details, but somehow back when I set up the system I received an activation code, and I entered it, and the expired messages stopped for about 7 months.  Now ghost says the product license has expired, and I can't figure out how to get back to the activation code entry dialog box.   I do have the CD.   Any help would be much appreciated.

Here is my situation. I bought my XPS 400 in 2/06. At that time Dell offered a Data Safe system based on 1) an additional drive in a RAID 1 configuration and 2) a full copy of Norton Ghost 10.

When I go to Start/All Programs there is an entry Dell DataSafe that explains all the details. I also received a Norton Ghost 10 CD and an activation code. (The DataSafe now offered by Dell is different and does not include Norton Ghost.)

 

When I got the Ghost expired message I was (somehow) able to get to a place where I could enter the activation code and all has been okay since then.

 

However, Ghost often acts very strange. When I update my Norton products using Live Update it (alone) always fails to update. When I complain by email to Symantec about this they never reply. It sometime hangs as it is creating a Recovery Point. Since I can always recover, I tend to ignore it. Recently I have seen lots of nasty comments about Ghost on the web. I have a feeling Symantec is trying to bury it.

 

As I suggested earlier, you might try removing and then reinstalling Ghost. I think I've been lucky so far. Hope you are too. 

Thanks for the info.   I purchased my system in December 2006, and installed it and set it up in early January 2007.   Norton Ghost stated that it had expired almost immediately.   I do not recall the details, but I did receive (perhaps from dell live support) an activation key for Norton Ghost which I entered into the ghost activation dialog, which stopped the "expired" messages.    At the time I found this text on the Dell web site which I'm glad I saved:

 

1 If you select the Dell DataSafe option for backup & recovery, you will receive a fully licensed version of Norton Ghost 10 and will not be required to purchase any additional licenses.

 

That's pretty clear.   That and the fact that the invoice shows a non-trial version of ghost 10 (there is no mention of a trial period) leads me to believe I'm owed a fully licensed version of ghost from Dell.

 

Initially the dell live chat service person I just spoke with today claimed that I had not paid for Norton Ghost and therefore that I had I trial version.   When I said that I was not satisfied by that based on what the web site told me at the time of purchase, I was transferred to a dell customer service manager.   His solution is for me to call a Semantec tech support line for Dell DataSafe and to check my activation code with them, then to get back to him at Dell.    We'll see how it goes but this is extremely frustrating!

 

I have not had any issues yet with Norton Ghost 10 other than this message, it updates fine in LiveUpdate, but my backup disk is full and I can't do anything to address this because anything I do leads to a "expired" message.

 

I'll summarize what I learn to this thread.

The latest update is that Symantec tech support said that Ghost is discontinued.   Great.   When I asked if they could fix it so that I could use the software even though it's discontinued, they asked me for the product key.   I read the product key from the NorTon Ghost CD sleeve from dell to the tech.   There were 24 digits.    Symantec tech support said it was an incorrect product key, that correct product keys have 25 digits, and that I'd have to get the correct product key from dell.    Figures.   So now back to Dell and am waiting to hear back from the tech support manager.

The current resolution is that uninstalling Norton Ghost and re-installing it has re-enabled the software.   The product key on the back of the CD sleeve (which Symantec tech support claimed was invalid) worked perfectly well to install the software.   So I'm back up and running (for now).  Uninstalling and reinstalling seemed to loose track of all restore points without deleting them, so I had to delete them manually then do a manual backup to get the system backed up again.

 

Norton Ghost does seem to have its limitations -- I'd like to exclude some directories like photos from backup because they're so large, but you can apparently only backup entire disks at a time.

 

The dell tech support manager I dealt with admitted that the first tech was incorrect when she said that I had not paid for Norton Ghost and that I had a trial version instead of a fully licensed version.

Just an update to those who have had Ghost 10 problems. After a three month wait, Symantec Support suddenly replied in early August to my May request.

 

My problem was that I could not use Live Update to update my Ghost 10 and I could not uninstall it. After I sent them some log data, they helped me with details on how to uninstall/install Ghost (which was somehow damaged) and now everything works fine. I hope that this is a sign that Symantec support is functioning again. It has been a long wait.