That happened to me on only one machine. Notably it was a machine with the 64 bit OS ( Others were 32). I thought that there might be some relationship. As you noted, I deinstalled 2009 and 2010 went in smoothly after that.
I have to say, the 2009 and 2010 products were some of the cleanest removals and installations I've ever seen from a Norton product in years.
2009 was upgraded to 2010 without a hitch for me. A very large difference from when Norton was a beast to be removed and installed some years ago. -- Tom