After numerous angry users informed Symantec that one of its security solutions mistakenly flagged two Windows XP critical files as malware and quarantined them, the parent company decided to take attitude and offer compensation to the affected users. Back in May, a lot of Chinese users said that Symantec's Norton Antivirus harmed their computer while the company's officials blamed an update made to the security application. However, Symantec decided to offer free licenses to the affected users just as a "gesture of goodwill". According to PC World, the company offers a one-year license extension for Norton and a copy of Norton Save & Restore 2.0.

However, it is only a limited offering as the campaign is available from June 27 to July 15, but the company's officials said that if any user fails to contact the firm before this deadline, they might increase the period to offer compensation to him. In order to receive the freeware licenses, you have to register on a special site created by Symantec and available here.

"We are offering more than two weeks for the registration period which we believe is a reasonable period of time for customers to register," said Catriona Turner, a Symantec spokeswoman in Australia, according to PC World. "If there are legitimate reasons why a particular customer is unable to register by July 15, we will give consideration to extending the date for that customer."

Do not try to trick the company and obtain freeware licenses if you were not affected by the issue because Symantec plans to ask a set of questions in order to find out who was really affected. "Customers will be asked to complete a series of questions during the validation process to help us ascertain that the customer was genuinely impacted," Turner said for the same source.