BoClean 4.10

Just got my new update emailed to me. Only problem after it is installed my computer will not boot up. After log in BoClean does it scan and then it just stops. After doing a Ctrl-Alt-Delete it tells me Explorer is not responding. Did a GoBack and tried again but the same thing. After 1 more GoBack I went back to 4.09. Anyone else have this happen? I am using Windows Me.

 

Dom,

Have this same problem also. Deleted it and went back to 4.09. If you hear anything let me know.

Phazor

 

The same thing happened to me, and I dropped Kevin a line.

It turns out that if you uninstall 4.09 first, 4.10 will install without a prob.

However, I now am unable to start up Outlook Express (5.5 SP2/Win98 SE).

When I fired up Outlook Express (5.5 SP2) with the intention of thanking Kevin for his swift reply, it just wouldn't start.
I waited for 15 seconds, and tried again, and again, ending up with 6 instances of Msimn in active tasks, but no Outlook Express in sight.

I ended task on them all, shut down BOClean, and tried again, and sure enough, OE came right up'.

I'd be interested to hear whether anyone else is experiencing this, and will post here myself , as soon as I get a reply from NSClean support.

Cheers, Tony

 

OK, I got a reply from Kevin lightning fast, as always:

"Run BOClean. In the BOClean configuration screen, if you look down towards the lower right corner, there's a checkbox there marked "Fasthook" ...
If you UNcheck that and then reboot, Outbreak should come up working ... we did see a couple of circumstances where this has happened and what it is is MSIMN is being hooked by an antivirus that won't allow BOClean at the program, but BOClean has halted it and is waiting for access to it. UNchecking the "Fasthook" will cause BOClean not to do that."

And of course he was right!

 

I have installed BOClean 4.10 and it is running fine. I installed over version 4.09, i.e. w/o uninstalling version 4.09. Prior to installation, I shut down programs and services, except Explorer and Systray. Has anyone else installed it this way with success?

 

My advice, especially if you're running Outlook Express, is don't mess with v4.10 until the "Big Boys & Girls" say it's alright.

I've been agonizing over it for two days as amply described here and in the GRC forum. Notwithstanding that v4.10 has a couple of great new features, save yourself a lot of grief...stick with v4.09 for the time being.

"Fasthook" Fredinho

 

Oops...Sorry. My advice is intended ONLY for users like me who are at the bottom of the PC food chain!

Fredinho

 

Well, I tried it too .....

Problems with Fasthook and problems without Fasthook.
So it was Fast removed from my system.....

 

Hmmm, there seems to be some work to do yet, at NSCLean...

For my part, I can only say that, after disabling Fasthook, I have no problems with the new version.

 

https://grc.com/x/news.exe?cmd=article&group=grc.security.software&item=64647&utag=

And there are other postings at GRC.security.software with this subject:
Re: BOClean 4.10 and fasthook

 

Nancy is asking feedback at the PSC-forum at Becky's:

http://66.119.216.59/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=40;t=000224

 

New software releases often have problems - it's impossible to test EVERY system configuration possibility out there.

I'm happy that the code is at least IN there, and I have NO doubt that Kevin will get these problems some people have been having fixed soon.

-javacool

 

The following is a quote from Kevin over at GRC:

https://grc.com/x/news.exe?cmd=article&group=grc.security.software&item=64920&utag=

[hr]
Yes, there have been a few (60 so far) problems reported with BOClean
4.10 going in without a prior uninstall of 4.09 (or an uninstall of 4.10
which accomplishes same removal from registry of old entries and early
startups) when either Kerio, ZoneAlarm or Sygate is present on Win98SE
boxes ... I'm still trying to get to the bottom of it and am still here
beating my head against the wall. The problem sounds like the "Fasthook"
is activated somehow, and after the first day we saw that a few people
were having problems with an associated DLL included with BOClean that
provides the "Fasthook" services and defaulted it to "off" ... the
"standard hook" works if this is turned off and doesn't seem to run afoul
of the firewall's system hooks. What we have going on though is
"contention" where the firewall locks down and backing off BOClean solves
it for now, long enough for me to continue to work on why the deadlock is
occurring at all on Win98 and ME. Under NT, Win2000 and XP, all works
famously. If the three mentioned firewalls aren't there (using either no
firewall or something else) no problem either. For many, still no problem.

What we did determine though is if any remains of BOClean 4.09 are still
installed, BOClean 4.10 needs to load AFTER Explorer comes up. Because of
this, we relocated the startups from one location in the registry where
4.09 started up earlier than anything else in the past to a new location
where it starts after Explorer. What's most likely is that since you
didn't uninstall 4.09 (I inadvertently neglected to mention the need for
the uninstall of 4.09 in the emails that went out the first day and
adjusted the SETUP program to take care of it as of the second day of
release) that original "early start" key may have still been there and
triggered the whole thing. When you uninstalled (assuming that you
received yours after 4pm on the 27th) that would have corrected it as well
since the uninstall mode would have cleared the registry entries in the
4.10 setup as well. That's my guess.

One of the reasons why I've been "invisible" the last few days is I'm
still struggling to pinpoint the cause - wasted a lot of time checking out
how the various firewalls worked only to discover yesterday that it isn't
the firewalls causing the problem - they're contributing to it by the way
they use VXD's to hook Win9X/ME, but the problem has been determined to be
the Microsoft Visual Studio DOTNET 7.0 that we had to use to build that
DLL. There's a bug in the compiler itself which favors properly working
code on NT/2000/XP and does subtle hoses for 95/98 and ME. Something in
there isn't right and I've been struggling to find out where the problem
is and work around it. The REST of BOClean (aside from the Fasthook DLL)
is written in Borland and that's what we've always built our stuff with.
The DLL unfortunately needs to access pieces of the Windows kernel that
aren't documented and so we're stuck at the moment.

Bottom line though, turn off "Fasthook" and BOClean falls back on its
traditional hook which doesn't require that pesky DLL where a problem
arises. As soon as I get a working compile out of Microsoft's compiler,
and we can test it, I'll provide everybody the fix. Been at it all weekend
and am still banging my head against the wall. What's more frustrating
than anything is we handed out 4.10 prior to release to just over 450
folks, and only one ran into any problems. I made the mistake of assuming
that to be a fluke. Yow.

Anyhoo, a reload SHOULD get you past the problem you had the first
go-round - that was the old 4.09's entrails that probably caused that.
Just make sure since you did run into the lockup that you install, then
instead of rebooting as you are told, RUN BOClean as soon as it's been
installed (instead of rebooting), doubleclick on the traybar icon, select
"Configure BOClean" and when the configuration screen comes up, make SURE
that the small checkbox in the lower right corner marked "Fasthook" is
*NOT* checked. Uncheck it if it is. Then you should be OK until we get the
DLL replaced.

My apologies ... we test the hell out of everything we make before
letting it go. This has been an even more unpleasant surprise for me.
That'll learn me to use Microsoft's latest to design a piece of our stuff.

For everyone else, be happy to provide chapter and verse on this once I
get the problem solved. I've received a number of emails from folks with
questions about how our web page is laid out and more esoteric questions
from "which firewall is better than another" and so on. For now, I'm only
answering email from people that are having problems that need immediate
attention. Answering emails and dropping by here is time spent away from
working on the code and checking out nasties. Once I come up for air, I'll
get to those as well as time permits. Hope this helps for now ... it's
been a hell of a week.