Great programm - but still a glitch with Outpost ...

First of all: Version 3 is just GREAT and I congratulate the DCS team (and all of us users, of course ) for it! It's running very smoothly on my computer and I haven't had a serious problem so far.

But there is still an annoyance with Outpost that bothers me. Every time I log out of my user (or admin) account to log on with another account the usual PG window pops up warning me that the Outpost process is to be terminated. If I manage to click the Cancel button twice fast enough everything is okay. But sometimes the log out process is so fast that I manage only one click (or even none) - with the result that my computer is frozen for, say, half a minute or even longer. It was even necessary in one case to press the reset button.

Am I the only user with that problem? Is there a way to circumvent it?

 

Hi Tlu, Not sure what pop up your seeing there, if it is the Human Interface Device (HID) then you should probably click "OK to All" if you have that option.

Thanks. Pilli

 

Another couple of things to try, just work arounds.
Close the progrm befor switching, or disable ProcessGuard temporally.

 

... or don't use secure closing/close message handling on Outpost. (just guessing, and even so I don't know if this is an attractive option for you...)

HTHH,
Andreas

 

Hi Pilli - of course I was talking about the HID, could't just find the right words.
Regarding "OK to All": That's unfortunately not available.

 

You might try disabling the Human Interface Device on the Outpost Administration Panel as it doesnt affect the actual firewall being able to secure your computer. Open PG, goto the Protection tab and find Outpost. There should be the Outpost service which you could leave Human Interface Device turned on so that you could be notified if someone attempts to close it even though the service will not be affected either way. There should also be the Administration Panel for Outpost listed as something else. Look under "Other options for this application" and disable "Secure Message Handling". If you turn off the Human Interface Device for the Administration panel it will not bug you anymore.

 

Hi Andreas: I would prefer to keep SMH enabled, indeed.

 

SMH is not needed for the Administration panel though tlu. It closes when you exit out of it and leaves the actual firewall (the service) running. Do you really want PG to alert you every time you open Outpost to change settings?

 

That might be correct for other firewalls or anti-virus programs - but not for Outpost! There is only one outpost.exe, and if I click on the Exit button not only the GUI but also the service is shut down (even under a restricted user account!).

Aside from that, I disabled SMH but that didn't change anything. Only if I disable "protect from termination" I can prevent the HID - but that's obviously no option I wanna chose.

By the way: In the meantime I had two more freezes when changing from one account to the other ...

 

Erm. If this is really what's happening, then something more serious is going wrong here: Termination Protection normally will never solicit a HID prompt. A log entry, tray icon blinking and balloon, okay, but no popup dialogue like SMH does. I rather suspect that you didn't relaunch outpost after disabling smh - and smh changes only take effect upon the next start of the app in question.

If I'm wrong on this, tho, and you really get a HID popup (the one where you have to enter a sequence of characters and press ok or cancel) even though SMH is not enabled, then please do specify this again - DCS will surely be interested in it.

Other than that, that actually doesn't really help you with the original problem of course.



Andreas

 

Andreas, thanks a lot for this hint - that was indeed the reason. Now, with SMH disabled, everything seems to work flawlessly, at least so far. It's a pity, however, that SMH can't be used for a program that is critical for the security of one's computer. But I understand that it's Agnitum's fault that they didn't separate the Outpost service from the its GUI. That will be changed in future versions hopefully.

 

Hi Tlu, You can harden OP2 by using it's built in PassPhrase protection as this will make it much harder to shutdown.

HTH Pilli

 

Thanks, Pilli. I'm aware of that option and I might use it from now on.