WormGuard 4 and WinXp glitch

[J. Spurlin]

I just downloaded wormguard and checked the version, which appears to be 4.

I encountered an issue which happened again after reformatting my hard drive and reinstalling the OS (WinXP professional). Since I installed TDS3 and WG4 before I tested the "Help and Support" link on the start menu, I am not certain which installation between the two precipitated this and I apologize ( But I did test the link up to that point, including Panda 7 titanium and the short cut worked fine)

After installing WG4 when I clicked on the "Help and Support" link on WinXp pro SP1, the program throws and error stating the "helpctr.exe is not a valid Win32 application" . I search for the directory and sure enough it isn't: suddenly the exe is a 0kb file!

This does not seem to be critical: no other features seem to have been negatively affected, and I just removed the link or shortcut for "Help and Support" from the Start Menu. I used DiskImage 2002 before reinstalling this time, so if a critical recovery is necessary, I have it.

But I would like to know if WG4 heuristics or maybe TDS3 hueristics ( I am pretty sure this happened after installing WG4 )
have found something problematic with this program file that installs with the OS?

I am a TOTAL newbie, so I will spend sometime trying to look at log files, etc..., but I thought this might be of interest especially to the programmers involved with the development as well as sales, since it might give someone the wrong impression if this happens to them.

Any similar experience?
I would LOVE to FDISK my machine and redo the test for ya - uh, not really :) ;D

[LowWaterMark]

Hi J. Spurlin,

Welcome to Wilders! :)

Can you do a Search on your system, looking for all copies of the file: helpctr.exe and if you find any that are 0KB in size (empty), delete those (just the empty one/ones) and then try running "Help and Support" again?

We've seen this issue before and it appears tied to the creation of empty copies of some programs. These empty ones "get in the way" of the real ones being able to run.

Sometimes these are under \Documents & Settings\ and sometimes in other places. Doing a Start > Search (Find...) on All files and folders on your system should point out if this in the problem you are seeing.

The last page on this thread (direct link) (http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=8548;start=30) should also give you more information on this issue.

Hope this helps,
LowWaterMark

[Jason_DiamondCS]

Hi J. Spurlin,
you are using WormGuard 3 not WormGuard 4. The about box says WormGuard 4 but it really is WG-3. WormGuard 4 is nearing the end of development and it is totally different to WG-3 without any of the problems associated with WG-3. As LWM said, just delete the 0 byte files and the problem should be fixed.
-Jason-

[Patrice]

Hello everyone!

Well, I'm really glad that I read this thread! I have encountered the same problem (Windows XP Pro). Let's say I'm not a Newbie and therefore I tried a lot of things to solve this special problem on my own. Unfortunately my solutions didn't work neither... :(

First of all, I searched the registry for a wrong entry. Because it's quite difficult to find the right entry for helpctr.exe (there are so many) I used different tools to locate 'em. I used Filemon and Regmonitor, both from Sysinternals. And I found the important keys! But, the keys were set correctly... :-\

So I searched the Microsoft Knowledge Base, Microsoft TechNet and a Windows Forum. None of them could help me... Finally I found your thread and I did like you said and deleted all the zero entries of helpctr.exe (even tough I thought that this solution is too easy). NOPE, didn't work at all! :-\

Finally I uninstalled the Wormguard protection and guess what. IT WORKED! ;D So, this means, that there's an error in Wormguard. Perhaps it's important for the developers to know, that I always have problems installing the Wormguard protection. There's a workaround help site on the DCS site and it works. But perhaps this causes the problem, I don't know.

Would be nice to hear from the developers what I have to do now. Because I run out of ideas... I already used two hours yesterday and couldn't fix it.

Thanks for your help!

Best regards!

Patrice

[Pilli]

Patrice, This subject os WG3 & XP is wellcovered in many threads.The simple answer is to delete th ehelpctr.exe 0 byte files, if like mine, your help & support from Start does not work simply create a desktop shortcut to: C:\WINDOWS\PCHEALTH\HELPCTR\Binaries\helpctr.exe Changing the drive letter if applicable. This should cure the problem.

As Jason said WG4 is totally different and will not have these problems, it is not worth changing WG3 for these minor problems.

HTH Pilli

[Jooske]

It's a known XP issue with installing software as admitted in the MS knowledge pages and where workarounds are given. So it's not only related to WG or TDS.
I'm sure your remarks will be taken into consideration for an extra check for the new version close to appear.

[Patrice]

Hi Pilli!

I'm aware of that helpctr.exe is still working. It's just not working if I start it via the Explorer. Deleting the 0 byte files doesn't solve the problem as I already mentioned above. And yeah, I just hate Desktop shortcuts... ;D And by the way, I don't use the Help & Support of Microsoft a lot... ;)

Greetings,

Patrice

[Pilli]

Patrice,
Do you mean by going to the biaries directory using explorer & clicking on helpctr.exe ? BTW the file size is 742,400 in XP Pro SP1

If you can do that, good, then you do not have a problem?