Norton Utilities is a utility software suite designed to help analyze, configure, optimize and maintain a computer. The current version of Norton Utilities is Norton Utilities 16 for Windows XP/Vista/7/8 was released October 26, 2012.Peter Norton published the first version for DOS, The Norton Utilities, Release 1, in 1982. Release 2 came out about a year later, subsequent to the first hard drives for the IBM PC line. Peter Norton's company was sold to Symantec in 1990.