Kerio 2.1.5 won't install properly

I've used Kerio PFW 2.1.5 on my XP Pro SP2 computer for a few months now and am very pleased with it.

So when I bought a new computer (also XP Pro SP2), my first thought was to install Kerio again. It was the first program I loaded after the operating system software (apart from the hardware drivers). When I went to reboot the p.c. after installation, the XP boot up took several minutes before the following error message appeared:

"C:\Program Files\Kerio\Personal Firewall\PERSFW.EXE
pfVarLibInit: vol_server_start error: 1 (10047 socket() failed)"

Thereafter I could not log on to Windows.

This is really disappointing because it's a great program. Can anyone suggests some tweaks I could try to get it working please?

(I already tried installing it in safe mode - no joy)

Edit 24-Sept-08:
Sorry folks - that error message should be:
"C:\Program Files\Kerio\Personal Firewall\PERSFW.EXE
pfVarLibInit: vol_server_start error: 1 (10022 socket() failed)

 

Error 10047 is a Winsock Error, see the list below
http://kb.globalscape.com/article.aspx?id=10140&cNode=7V0O1M

First I would try to reinstall Kerio and if it still doesn't work you could take a look at the Support Forum here if you find something in relation to your error.

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/kerio

 

Although both PCs ran XP SP2, the hardware and drivers are probably quite a bit different on the new machine. So there's really no telling how things will interact with older software like that.

I personally never had as good of luck with Kerio 2.1.5 on XP as I had on Win2k. On 2k it ran flawlessly (save for the obvious flaws), but on XP I did encounter a few oddities and bugs.

I don't have any solution suggestions, sorry, except to just experiment and see if you can get past the errors.... Kerio was one of a kind... I liked it a lot myself.

 

Did you install the motherboard chipset drivers and NIC drivers?

 

Did you install with the default rules or did you copy some old *.conf files to the Kerio directory before rebooting?

 

Yes, the chipset, NIC, graphics and audio drivers

I tried to reboot with the default rules.

I am going to try and repair WinSock and see if that helps (the reported error is a Winsock error). I'll report back here if that succeeds.

 

You can try this first

Goto Start –> Run
type cmd and click OK.
Type netsh winsock reset
Press ENTER . Restart immediately

There is also WinSock Fix 1.2 but I never use it myself.

http://compnetworking.about.com/gi/.../www.spychecker.com/program/winsockxpfix.html

 

Thanks. Tried this, but I think that it might be the network adapter that's causing the problem

 

I think you're right - it could be the NIC drivers causing the problem.

I looked at EventVwr after booting up and saw the following error messages were posted at boot-up:

Event Viewer Error
Event ID: 4311
Source: NetBT
Initialization failed because the driver device could not be created.

Event Viewer Information
Event ID: 4202
Source: Tcpip
The system detected that network adapter \DEVICE\TCPIP_{00DDEEDA-38C6-4224-B141-86FBFFF5A113} was disconnected from the network, and the adapter's network configuration has been released. If the network adapter was not disconnected, this may indicate that it has malfunctioned. Please contact your vendor for updated drivers.

So I tried disabling the on-board network adapters and reinstalled Kerio. Kerio installed and booted up no problem! The Kerio splash screen appeared during the XP boot-up process ('Loading your personal settings'), as it does on my other p.c. All error messages had disappeared.

So then I re-enabled the network adapters and rebooted. Kerio still seems to load OK but this time the Kerio splash screen only appears about 15 seconds after the windows desktop first appears. Seems to work OK after that though.

Could anybody suggest something to try to speed up the start up of Kerio, please?

 

More observations:

On my old p.c., the network IP is assigned automatically and the Kerio splash screen appears during Windows boot-up before the desktop appears. On my new p.c., the IP address is assigned by me in the NIC properties and the Kerio splash screen appears after the windows desktop has appeared.

This guy observes the same thing:
[Kerio 2.15 PFW] and [WinXP] make it start first?

If the IP address is static, I wonder if there is a point during boot up when the firewall is not operative?

 

The appearance of the splash screen doesn't necessarily indicate when the firewall becomes active. It's when its driver is loaded that matters. Sysinternals has a utility named LoadOrder that shows the order that drivers are loaded in. It's available here. You could run it on both PCs and see what's different.

 

I did try this and could not see any difference between the load orders on the two p.c.s

**********
It seems as though I can solve my problem by disabling my p.c.'s network adapters (using Device Manager) before installing Kerio. Then I reboot and enable the adapters again.

Strange no?

 

It's different alright. I've used Kerio for years and installed it on many systems from 98 thru XP. Never ran into anything like that. As long as it works.

 

I was a bit hasty. Still have problems.

The network adapters and Kerio can't co-exist and I haven't got the knowledge to resolve the problem.

 

Sometimes that happens... Kerio 2 is very old now. It's not a matter of knowledge, it probably can't be resolved. Time to move on to something else I would think....

 

Can you narrow the conflict down to a specific network adaptor? If so, updating the driver for it may help. It's also possible that an earlier version of the driver for the adaptor might work as well. Can you compare the adaptors and their drivers on the 2 PCs, what brand, driver version, etc?

 

In the older p.c., wherein Kerio 2.1.5. works well, the network adapter is a Realtek RTL8169/8110 Family Gigabit Ethernet NIC. The driver file is Rtnicxp.sys version 5.687.0225.2008 dated 25-Feb-2008.

In the newer p.c., where I have the compatibility problem, the network adapter is Intel 82575EB Gigabit Network Connection and the driver is e1q5132.sys version 10.2.28.0 dated 10-Jan-2008.

I tried updating the driver on the 'problem p.c.' but this didn't solve the problem. I can't find an older driver to download so, as yet, have not been able to test out whether this will improve matters.

 

Can you just take the network adapter in the older PC and swap it into the new one and install the drivers for it etc? Or alternatively, buy another network card and take a shot with that? I guess it depends on how bad you want Kerio 2.1.5.

 

Kerio 2.1.5 driver is written extremely well. However it was hard for Kerio designers to predict at the time it was written all the things that network drivers developers will do in the future, so incompatibilities can happen, unfortunately.

 

Yep, exactly, and that's to be expected......