GesWall = System Bricked

[1boss1]

Ok it appears GesWall has somehow totally bricked my system, has anyone else encountered install problems like this or is it just my bad luck?

I installed GesWall fine, it asked for a reboot and i done so. During reboot, my system just went in a loop and i was presented with "Return to Last Known Good Configuration" and it was really my only option as a normal reboot failed.

I got in to the desktop, GesWall told me license has expired so i though ok i will uninstall it. It started to uninstall and i was showered with pop-ups and lost control of the system. Here's one screenshot i managed before things locked up: http://i27.tinypic.com/nmddt5.jpg

So no option but to hold down the power button and force a reboot, trying to reboot i was told /system32/ was missing or corrupt. I tried to use the Windows CD to do a recovery, my C partition wasn't listed. I also tried to fix the MBR at the command prompt, still no good.

I did manage to install a brand new XP on D partition, so i'm sitting at a fresh XP with no service packs and IE6. I can browse to C drive through My Computer, so i'm attempting to pick through the files and grab what's important which is a lot considering it's been installed for 5 years running like clockwork.

BTW does GesWall Pro even have a trial or was this all in vain? From the 2 seconds i saw of it, my taskbar went red and it said license invalid.

Not happy. >:(

[jmonge]

you are not alone cause same happened to me before and this was the reason i stoped using it;D

note:it happens with the pro trial,after that i tried the free version it was ok:)

[aigle]

seems something pretty bad. May be some bug that made geswall to isolate whole system. Not unexpected with a software that is not used by so many users and has slow development, slow bug fixes, etc.

[1boss1]

It appears when it uninstalled, it wiped out critical Windows system files because when i ran it's uninstaller that's when all those pop-ups started.

I disabled Outpost when i installed, and uninstalled GesWall but from the popups it "seems" it deleted Outpost files also because Norton complained about no firewall. The Windows tampering popup, never seen that in my life and the new hardware one.. No idea why that came up because there was no new hardware.

Well.. It certainly trashed my whole system, most my data i can recover but i did lose some recent work and rebuilding is going to be a massive setback.

I don't know how GesWall works i didn't even get to see a GUI, but my entire taskbar was pulsing red after i done it's reboot and got to the desktop. Does that mean my whole system was isolated, and when i uninstalled it GesWall basically tried to uninstall/delete my whole system?

:gack:

[blacknight]

Are you using together all the sws in your signature ? If so, I believe you had a system conflict, or you didn't give some authorization during the GesWall installing process.

[trjam]

I agree, I never would have installed it with all that. Norton is still in beta.

[1boss1]

No i had Norton 2009 and Outpost which was disabled during the whole process. Malwarebytes is only on demand.

[blacknight]

Yaa, and too much sw with HIPS features.... I've beeen used GesWall since 2.7 version, and it runs good. I use an HIPS, naturally, but only one.

[trjam]

well I understand, and do know something bad happened. What? Who knows. I have installed and uninstalled Geswall a 100 times with never a issue, but the most other software that I have on there is a AV. Norton 2009 should work with it, I say Outpost might have had the conflict with it. I have never used it. But Geswall it pretty tame on install.

[trjam]

also just because something is disabled, it still has drivers that can still be bouncing heads with something else.

[blacknight]

-{ Quote: "No i had Norton 2009 and Outpost which was disabled during the whole process. Malwarebytes is only on demand." }-


We posted in the same time, I didn't read your last post. So don't you use Malware Defender too ? Anyway Outpost was disabled at the reboot ? If during the reboot Outpost was running, may be that it got in conflict with GesWall before you could give it the authorizations.

[blacknight]

I used GesWall with KIS 7, CIS and OSSS and I never had problems.

[1boss1]

I have 2 computers, desktop and laptop and what's in my signature is the products i run between the both.

The only thing that was running was NIS09, this happened on my main machine the desktop.

More problems now, i "had" XP Media Center installed (OEM) but the only XP CD i have is Home Edition. Got 3/4 of the way through install and of course my key doesn't work.

If i download Media Center edition, i'll get capped to dial-up for the next 2 weeks. Great, just what i need.

[virtumonde]

-{ Quote: "Ok it appears GesWall has somehow totally bricked my system, has anyone else encountered install problems like this or is it just my bad luck?

I installed GesWall fine, it asked for a reboot and i done so. During reboot, my system just went in a loop and i was presented with "Return to Last Known Good Configuration" and it was really my only option as a normal reboot failed.

I got in to the desktop, GesWall told me license has expired so i though ok i will uninstall it. It started to uninstall and i was showered with pop-ups and lost control of the system. Here's one screenshot i managed before things locked up: http://i27.tinypic.com/nmddt5.jpg

So no option but to hold down the power button and force a reboot, trying to reboot i was told /system32/ was missing or corrupt. I tried to use the Windows CD to do a recovery, my C partition wasn't listed. I also tried to fix the MBR at the command prompt, still no good.

I did manage to install a brand new XP on D partition, so i'm sitting at a fresh XP with no service packs and IE6. I can browse to C drive through My Computer, so i'm attempting to pick through the files and grab what's important which is a lot considering it's been installed for 5 years running like clockwork.

BTW does GesWall Pro even have a trial or was this all in vain? From the 2 seconds i saw of it, my taskbar went red and it said license invalid.

Not happy. >:(" }-
Hello.I have sen something similar with the previous version of Geswall.I have monitored the it's installation with Total Uninstall,used Geswall for a couple of Days,than uninstalled with Total Uninstall.
During this operation Geswall ask's to reboot(normal behaviour for an app like this IMO),but total uninstall had an option(don't know if if it still asks now) to remove the files before the reboot.which i tried to do,and ended with the OS literally removed like your experience.
I was prepared for the worse, i always have an fresh image to restore with Paragon,so no harm was done.
I ve seen that you rebooted so i don't know what happened in your case .Did u used a 3rd party uninstall tool?

[Joeythedude]

I get a BSOD occasionally. If I try and change a file to untrusted is the most common reason.

[aigle]

Trying security software that digg deep into the system always needs a good backup I think, and even without that.

[1boss1]

-{ Quote: "Hello.I have sen something similar with the previous version of Geswall.I have monitored the it's installation with Total Uninstall,used Geswall for a couple of Days,than uninstalled with Total Uninstall.
During this operation Geswall ask's to reboot(normal behaviour for an app like this IMO),but total uninstall had an option(don't know if if it still asks now) to remove the files before the reboot.which i tried to do,and ended with the OS literally removed like your experience.
I was prepared for the worse, i always have an fresh image to restore with Paragon,so no harm was done.
I ve seen that you rebooted so i don't know what happened in your case .Did u used a 3rd party uninstall tool?" }-

That's interesting, so it deleted your OS also?

I do (did) have Total Uninstall on my system, but i didn't use it to uninstall GesWall. I found out quite some time back it's not the best to uninstall programs with drivers or things that need a reboot with third party uninstallers. I think it was Norton 04/05 i tried that and wound up with things broken, although nothing remotely like this.

Things went bad with GesWall before the uninstall. It installed, asked to do it's reboot which i did then the restart got caught in an endless boot and my only option was "Return to Last Known Good Configuration"

When i got to the desktop, my entire taskbar was pulsing red and it said license expired when i only just downloaded it for the first time. I didn't even see it's interface, it just bricked my system.

Could it of "sandboxed" my whole system, and when i uninstalled it tried to delete my OS thinking my OS was GesWall's contents?

Either way, worst software experience since Windows 1.0 and my 7Mhz Commodore Colt.

-{ Quote: "Trying security software that digg deep into the system always needs a good backup I think, and even without that." }-

I had an Acronis image, that failed and i had an older Paragon image which worked but it would of put me so far back i figured i was best to wear the loss and reformat from scratch and be done with it.

[trjam]

1boss1 I hate to leave folks hanging, but you may be right. I just put Geswall Pro onto a clean image with just MSE which is about as harmless as you can get. Great AV though. I got the following error message and dont know what it means. Maybe others do, but it proves your point. Sorry for the delay.

[IceCube1010]

Strange. I had GeSWall free running with MSE, the first beta. They had been running perfectly for a month, then all of a sudden on a bootup one morning MSE showed a window that it was checking a service of GeSWall (gswserv.exe). I clicked ok to allow MSE to check the service online. The next day when I booted up the PC, GeSWall's service was not runnnig. I did not see any indication that MSE had stopped it other than the previous day's message. I tried re-booting but the service would not start. I needed to re-install GeSWall for it to work again. I have both running again without a hitch except this is the 2nd beta for MSE.

Ice

[MICRO]

-{ Quote: "Ok it appears GesWall has somehow totally bricked my system, has anyone else encountered install problems like this or is it just my bad luck?

I installed GesWall fine, it asked for a reboot and i done so. During reboot, my system just went in a loop and i was presented with "Return to Last Known Good Configuration" and it was really my only option as a normal reboot failed.

>:(" }-
Three weeks ago the exact same while trying to install the freeware version.
I figured it was due to some incompatibilty, kept on getting White writing on a Blue screen.
Wasn't prepared to dump what I have - had made an ATI just before trying to install GW so restored it.

[aigle]

So far i had two issues on Win 7.

1- One BSOD in shadow mode of returnil
2- After few weeks of working suddenly the GW console window GUI was unable to be accessed. If I open console, it will produce a UAC prompt, i will allow, mmc.exe is running in task manager but no way to see its window that was invisible. Rebooted, no success. Uninstalled and reinstalled, then it,s OK now.

Seems this version is rough and it is expected as they did not gave us any beta before that.

I will make a post on their forums. It,s like a beta I suspect.

[IceCube1010]

-{ Quote: "So far i had two issues on Win 7.

1- One BSOD in shadow mode of returnil
2- After few weeks of working suddenly the GW console window GUI was unable to be accessed. If I open console, it will produce a UAC prompt, i will allow, mmc.exe is running in task manager but no way to see its window that was invisible. Rebooted, no success. Uninstalled and reinstalled, then it,s OK now.

Seems this version is rough and it is expected as they did not gave us any beta before that.

I will make a post on their forums. It,s like a beta I suspect." }-

#2 is kinda what happened to me. I thought is was MSE but apparently this is not the case. I hope it continues to work as I like GeSWall.

Ice

[Dave53]

-{ Quote: "#2 is kinda what happened to me. I thought is was MSE but apparently this is not the case. I hope it continues to work as I like GeSWall.

Ice" }-

I hate to report that I have been seeing the same thing lately GesWall with AviraPE and Prevx 3.

It seems like things will clear-up for awhile after a restart.

I need to check one of my other machines with GW and MSE to see if it's happening there also.

Dave

[1boss1]

-{ Quote: "1boss1 I hate to leave folks hanging, but you may be right. I just put Geswall Pro onto a clean image with just MSE which is about as harmless as you can get. Great AV though. I got the following error message and dont know what it means. Maybe others do, but it proves your point. Sorry for the delay." }-

Hmm that's not good, if it's a clean image with only one application installed. There seems to be something really wrong with either GesWall's installer or uninstaller (maybe both).

I just really wished i installed it on the laptop, instead of my main work machine that's had the same OS install for 5 years.

-{ Quote: "Three weeks ago the exact same while trying to install the freeware version.
I figured it was due to some incompatibilty, kept on getting White writing on a Blue screen.
Wasn't prepared to dump what I have - had made an ATI just before trying to install GW so restored it." }-

Yeah i got a blue "patch" of screen in the top left hand corner with white letters on it also after i installed and booted to the desktop. Hard to explain, but it was like a semi-transparent glitched icon, that wasn't any of mine.

Also my whole taskbar was pulsing red (it's normally black), and i had a "G" symbol floating about an inch above my system clock that seemed to do nothing when i left/right clicked on it.

No idea if that's normal.

Well i hope GesWall get it fixed before anyone else loses their system.

[aigle]

seems it sandbowed whole system or explore.eye.

[aigle]

Pls contribute in this thread if possibel.

http://gentlesecurity.com/board/viewtopic.php?p=1109#1109

[1boss1]

-{ Quote: "Pls contribute in this thread if possibel.

http://gentlesecurity.com/board/viewtopic.php?p=1109#1109" }-

Thanks for reporting it aigle, i see you have linked back to this thread. However there's probably not a whole lot of point me registering there to make a post, as i can't really offer much more info beyond what i've posted here.

The system was completely ruined, so i can't access it to get any logs, debug data or anything of that nature that would help out the developer. It was an XP SP3 32bit fully up to date machine, and only NIS09 running (Firewall component disabled).

The one useful piece of data i managed to capture is this screenshot: http://i27.tinypic.com/nmddt5.jpg

During the uninstall XP started to make multiple sounds, like when you try and delete locked files and i managed to reel off a print screen and save the screenshot to my external drive before everything froze. The only non XP things in taskmanager were:

-{ Quote: "AtomicAlarmClock.exe
ccSvcHst.exe (Norton 09)
dopus.exe and dopusrt.exe (Opus file manager)
iPoint.exe (Microsoft IntelliPoint Mouse Driver)
ObjectDock.exe (Docklet App Launcher)
SysSense.exe (Polls Google Adsense earnings and proves tooltip)
UnlockerAssistant.exe" }-

So i'm completely at a loss to what happened, the machine has run rock solid for almost 5 years.

Anyhow, i'm slowly putting humpty dumpty back together again. This time almost everything is a portable version of my applications, picking product serials keys out of a 100MB registry backup file is no fun lol.

[virtumonde]

-{ Quote: "Thanks for reporting it aigle, i see you have linked back to this thread. However there's probably not a whole lot of point me registering there to make a post, as i can't really offer much more info beyond what i've posted here.

The system was completely ruined, so i can't access it to get any logs, debug data or anything of that nature that would help out the developer. It was an XP SP3 32bit fully up to date machine, and only NIS09 running (Firewall component disabled).

The one useful piece of data i managed to capture is this screenshot: http://i27.tinypic.com/nmddt5.jpg

During the uninstall XP started to make multiple sounds, like when you try and delete locked files and i managed to reel off a print screen and save the screenshot to my external drive before everything froze. The only non XP things in taskmanager were:



So i'm completely at a loss to what happened, the machine has run rock solid for almost 5 years.

Anyhow, i'm slowly putting humpty dumpty back together again. This time almost everything is a portable version of my applications, picking product serials keys out of a 100MB registry backup file is no fun lol." }-
Just in case it would seem useful to someone.
From the list of applications you've described there,i have(also had at that time) Directory Opus and unlocker.

[dell boy]

yeh i had that isolating the whole system, but im afraid to say that was my fault for playing with geswall's resources, you can do some nasty stuff if you start making rules you dont understand that well :doubt: