RED ALERT Port explorer bug

NAUGHTY PORT EXPLORER BLAZE PUT PORT EXPLORER OVER HIS KNEE ANS SPANK SPANK NAUGHTY

will today started like every other day no sleep updated my pc to where literly everything is updated drivers critical updates media patchs av's security clean cut regystry ect ect

pc was working awsome an increase in speed as well

put it all went horiably wrong when i went loking for an updated portexplorer

it scared the daylights out of me i just got done updateing nav and updating rescue disk and m.e. start up disk i dowenloaded the new port explorer

and thats when it happend can i get a drum roll in here

as soon as i uninstall old port explorer and said yes to everything

on reboot i got two nortion antivirus alerts auto protect disabled and e-mail protection disabled

went in to nortion and reanabled then reboot algain same thing even after check disk for error

i did it 5 times same thing nortion disabled.

i installed the new port explorer anyways i figure this all hapend after the uninstall maybe installing new one would fix it

and guess what it worked nortion was back to normal

so why is it like that you know how many newbys will have heart attacks when they get that horiable two nortion alerts

chaosss panic and im 90% sure it has to do with port explorers uninstall

im thinking it something nav and port explored shared got wiped out on the uninstall of port explorer

what say theee

 

No Port explorer really uninstalls only it's own files and connections.
But PE is designed so that the new install automatically uninstalls the former version before installing the new one.
You know very well at in/un-installing any software you should disable av/at programs, maybe in the case of NAV even after getting it from the autostart reboot before going for the PE to avoid problems, as NAV can be really.... .. yaknow.....
We've seen in the various postings strange effects of NAV on other programs, as you might have seen too, which in cases disappeared after upgrading to NAV2003.
Hope your PE and all the other stuff is working fine now again!

 

Port Explorer shouldn't affect any other program in the uninstall/install procedure. Depending on what you have installed on your system, sometimes Port Explorer seems to have conflicts with various programs which don't seem to get along with a program which uses similar methods to it.

I designed Port Explorer from the start to co-exist with everything that it could. Due to the low-level nature of some of Port Explorer's features a few other programs don't like this either due to poor programming or competitive practices and will cause some network problems. I know this because there is an ability in the low level of the driver to "cause problems" if there is something else installed of a similar nature. Of course Port Explorer does not and will not ever cause problems if you install similar applications like it, it can co-exist on any level, unlike quite a few programs. To a lot of these programs credit though they have "fixed" these issues with newer versions of their products.

Finally as Jooske revealed, disable AV/AT programs whilst installing any program, otherwise you are in for headaches!
-Jason-

 

no port explorer awsome great software it has no problem with nortion 2002 when installed runs perfect

im runing windows me gateway pc useing nortion 2002

but it is true on uninstall everything fine you get prompted that some files may be shared do you wish to delet or leve files in

i said go ahead and uninstall it all

thats when nortion started acting up and i did it 5 times and on every time same thing

but when i reinstall port explorer nortion worked great algain.

nothing wrong with exploere or compadiablity but something wrong with uninstall with newly updated nortion 2002 if i uninstall port explorer.

to me this not big deal as i love my port explorer

im just saying that if you get flooded with mails or see newbys runing to the av forum asking about two eror messages about nortion they know why and not to be alarmed

by the way that was i think first verstion of portexplorer that i uninstall and it did that or was it second one not sure but it not the new one you just updated to

 

Re:RED ALERT Port explorer bug: NOT

Now you know Blazie, not just press buttons but first try to look and if you're not sure leave the files in unless it's highly recommended not to (which i doubt in most cases unless it would be an infection )

 

OK, I’m a newbie here as described above, more or less…I've done a search on 'NAV' and didn't see too much. This is long, but it may be informative. It is my opinion, based on my experiences below, that Symantec appears to be distributing Klez or other similarly –infected files.

I've had TRULY MASSIVE, MASSIVE problems with NAV 2003 on XP Pro over the last few days. This is the first time I’ve ever had trouble with NAV. I'm sort of surprised to see NAV problems linked with uninstalling PE on this forum, because I have been through 3 ground-up system re-builds to get at the root of this problem, and tonight I don't believe it has anything to do with PE. What *I* have experienced suggests to me that there is something seriously wrong with what Symantec is distributing.

I had a totally stable system on or around Feb 10th, and it all began with a routine virus definitions download via ‘intelligent updater’. I downloaded the definitions, attempted to do the ‘SARC’ update, and got an ~’update file corrupted’ error message. I don’t think PE was even on my machine yet for the first time. In fact, I think I sought out PE out to look into this problem, but I have been through so much…anyway, bear with me, I can tell you later on why I don’t think NAV problems have anything to do with PE whatsoever.

I repeatedly attempted to update the NAV definitions. Via ‘live update’, I got some kind of error message which I’ve since forgotten, ‘fatal error’, I think. I decided to uninstall NAV and could not -- that wasn’t even an option. I tried re-installing, again, no dice.

I then tried manually uninstalling NAV and of course that really screwed up my system. I tried removing Common\Shared live update components, and after I did that, I had no Windows search function (instead of the search dog, it was just a perfectly blank pane). The ‘system restore’ window, similarly, was totally blank and appeared not to even have invisible buttons. They just weren’t there. When I decided to back up my data files in preparation for a total system rebuild, I found my data CD creation software control interface totally inoperable, invisible, in fact! Plan B was to use an online backup service, but my Windows SSL functions were disabled. I finally managed to get most of my Outlook files, etc., uploaded to an online backup service via FTP (in clear text, I guess).

1st Complete System Rebuild (C: Drive Formatted): Shortly after I re-installed NAV 2003, toward the end of the rebuild (my system came with NAV 2002 originally), NAV started misbehaving. Along the way, I’d had massive, inexplicable problems downloading my NAV 2003 update from Symantec’s ‘extended download’ site, which turned into several phone calls to customer support. Most of the time my browser wouldn’t download their file, at default IE settings, with all of the SSL stuff set up correctly. Symantec download support seemed unsurprised, and took me to an alternate secret download site, from which I managed to download a corrupted launch file (when support was on the phone with me, we looked at the size and it was only 73M when it was supposed to be 78M, or something like that – strange since I did not interrupt the download).

Anyway, after I finally got 2003 installed, at shut-down, I’d get error messages that NAV was not responding, did I want to ‘end’ it? I would get similar errors for Explore.exe also. At one point, I even saw a C:\ command prompt window flash by then disappear before shut down. At this point I was pretty freaking alarmed!

2nd Complete System Rebuild (C: Drive Formatted): This time I re-installed less of my stuff, and did not pull data files and e-mail backup back in. It was just the baseline system, plus SyGate, and some other bits, plus some services tweaks. More strange NAV behavior, it shut itself off!

3rd Complete System Rebuild (C: Drive Formatted): On the prior rebuild I thought perhaps I’d screwed up by shutting down services that NAV needed, so this time I meticulously checked that uninstalling NAV was still an option after shutting each service down. I’d finished all the services tweaks and though I was almost done with a fully stable system again when I updated my recovery NAV 2002 version to NAV 2003. Installed 2003, A-OK, but after I uninstalled NAV 2003 to check that would work, when I went back to re-launch/re-install the zipped downloaded file, I got an error message that NAV needs at least 58M of storage space and there is not enough spare space on my drive. I have 16Gigs free, so, wrong answer! At this point I’d seen everything related to NAV totally croak for five days straight.

I started looking at the NAV support site again for more info. Q: Do they have a list of Windows services essential to NAV? A: No, none I can find anyway, though they did say follow ‘best practices’ and shut down unnecessary, dangerous services, but did not say which ones, or which ones to leave running. In another place, they also said to leave ‘Task Scheduler’ running.

Anyway, I found that ‘fatal error’ messages when installing NAV are a pretty good sign of the W32.Klez virus, and they have about 3 pages of material on how to deal with that – hard for me to follow….I really pity Klez –infected people who are not interested in computers.

Anyway, Klez seems to attack anything related to NAV, exactly what I have experienced. And I think you can see from my description of Rebuild #3, that starting with a totally clean system, the only change I made to it, downloading a 2003 upgrade file immediately, that file became corrupted with a non-enough disk space message when I tried to launch it (Symantec’s Klez removal tool found nothing) after 1 uninstall.

So there you have it: 1 install/uninstall of NAV 2003 from a totally clean system resulted in an unusable Symantec file downloaded from Symantec not 10 minutes before.

4th Complete System Rebuild (C: Drive Formatted): I have again totally re-built my system (except for data files), and re-installed everything, programs and drivers, including Port Explorer, and have no problems so far. What is the difference this time? I haven’t downloaded anything from Symantec, except for live updates to NAV 2002.
I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I have a System Works 2003 CD on the way via mail. I will be damn sure to use ‘Ghost’ to make an image of the first stable machine I can configure, because without an image, re-building my system piece-by-piece takes about 4-5 hours.

Incidentally, in this process I lost my WormGuard .pkf file and my registration e-mails for PE and WG, so I hope I can get another, plus my TDS-3 install info (never received, Action Pack buyer), from Diamond support.

 

For the DCS stuff (TDS, WG, PE) please email immedately to sales@diamoncs.com.au with your name and email and maybe way of payment at registering so they can find you back more easily.

For a possible klez remains:
when the system is not completely clean, NAV shows real strange behavior at installing and maybe too on uninstalling.
Your files were corrupt, so don't install them at all and wait for the CD-rom.
In the meantime, please go for a few online virus scans, like www.bitdefender.com, www.pandasoftware.com, http://housecall.antivirus.com for after your format you used again the possible wrong files. Some infections stay somewhere in the hidden sectors and keep causing problems even after formatting the hd.
I've seen something about the LifeUpdate on XP, somewhre in other forums here.
You can't trust the downloads you have so keep from using them at all! Maybe there was an error in the update you got, it happens to more developers a few times they show false positives or other strange things, and these are corrected most of time within a few hours.
If your system is clean, try to install PE and look for strange behavior in the means of processes, hidden things, etc.
Think after cleaning out PE would be the first to be installed and after the firewall and after that other av/at products.
Also WG you can install but it might be advisable to disable it the moments of installing something else, except for TDS or PE (which was there already if you followed the advised order )
Do you run XP with SP1 ?
NAV is known with uninstallause really lots of problems.
In other forum parts was spoken about a NAV uninstalling tool, to be able to get it really completely off, before reinstalling it.
If possible make restore points in every stage after an install has proven to be ok and system still stable, before installing a next program after that. So you can go back to where was ok last time.
As long as your system is a mess a ghost image is useless, so wait till all is really stable again. I mean: as i read you i think you could be still infected.

Now off to the online scans first of all! Hurry!
Fingers crossed for you in the meantime!
(If you can't start the full PE, get at least the eval if that works so you can keep an eye on hidden and suspicious things!)

 

Justin, For what it is worth just get rid of Norton, try a couple of other AV's NOD32 works fine with everything I run in XP Pro. I have tried 2003 as it came with a new MB, within two days I uninstalled it using the Symantechs website method.
I also have a licenced copy of NIS firewall etc and have not, as yet had the courage to try it, if I do it will be on my second PC

 

There shouldn't be any conflicts between PE and any AntiVirus program, but you should Disable your Antivirus program when installing anything (maybe even when installing a newer version of said antivirus program ) .

With you having so many problems with NAV Justin maybe it would be worth looking for another antivirus program? Two that I can highly recommend is Kaspersky AVP ( http://www.kaspersky.com/ ) and Nod32 ( http://www.nod32.com ) . Also check out the virus forums on this site for maybe some solutions to any of your Anti-Virus problems
-Jason-

 

Thanks for the advice, guys. NAV is pretty respected and I was completely happy with it for a long time, but I will look into Kaspersky and NOD.

I spent a lot of time on Symantec's website tonight and was dismayed to see, given the number of pages and the number of different methods and command line tools described to install/uninstall NAV, and cautions about it not getting along with other programs, that NAV appears to have a lot of install/uninstall issues. Maybe Symantec is just being suitably thorough in their support base, but I take away an impression that they've some work to do on how they install/uninstall.

Probably the thing I'm most unhappy about tonight is their support base referring me off their site to a MS technet article about NTFS MFT fragmentation issues leading to the 'insufficient disk space' message at time of install. I just rebuilt an XP system from scratch using factory CD-ROMs, kept the default MS settings, and within 20 minutes of doing that I've developed an MFT fragmentation problem when the only actions I took after rebuild involved...installing/uninstalling NAV Hmm...methinks they have a problem with install/uninstall they should be taking care of.

My rebuilt system is still working tonight (fingers crossed), with PE installed and working.

 

Oops, didn't see your reply Jooske.

OK, I will send sales an e-mail (actually did that before I had this problem, about the TDS).

Yes, on my third rebuild, like the others, I rebuilt from factory CD-ROMs, so didn't think it would be possible to still have a virus after that. That is possible?! Jeesh... Anyway, on 3rd rebuild, immediately after using the factory CD-ROMS, I went to Symantec and did a fresh download of the NAV 2003 upgrade file. Within 5 minutes of that and after installling, uninstalling NAV 2003, trying to re-install I get this 'insufficient disk space' message. Symantec support base says this is an NTFS MFT fragmentation issue, but it is really some virus isn't it?

The 4th rebuild is still functioning, but I guess I will go to the online scans.... I can really trust these online scans??

 

There are infections possible which are still there even after format. I wouldn't trust their downloads in any way at the moment, nor your installed NAV, without those online scans. They're an addition and see it as a second opinion and best cleaning option in case of infection which corrupts your installed security.

I just forgot in this whole story, you run XP, why didn't you use the restore function to get back to the moment before the LiveUpdate in the first place?

 

Jooske, thanks again!

I did Panda, Panda w/heuristic, Trend, and BitDefender online scans, all were negative, no viruses found....

Here's my theory on what happened: In the process of downloading NAV defs via intelligent updater, NAV got corrupted somehow. Maybe it is a subtle issue with NAV, maybe just a random event i.e. a transmission error, whatever (at the time it was via modem). Then, separately, trying to rebuild the system, I ran into a lot of issues pertaining to NAV install/uninstall, and upgrading from 2002 to 2003 during the re-build proces.

Sorry for hijacking the original thread! So back on topic: Based on my experience, from now on I'll assume NAV issues are with NAV first, rather than with anything else, especially if I installed/uninstalled.

Thanks again!

 

Glad you came out clean, i heard about some nasties (forgot which and how and where) which seem to hide so stubborn in sectors in the hd, and even are there after reformat, so i was worried some of those could have caught you, for instance via a corrupt NAV update. On the other hand, what i heard about such can mean you couldn't even install windows on those infected hds anymore, but still, better make sure.
I like those online scans and use them in between as second opinion, the one or the other.
There are threads in the forum about XP and the NAV LU and NAV 2002/2003 etc, so there seem more issues with that.
Hope you have your system stable as can be again (don't forget to make a new restore point from there) and enjoy among others PE to the fullest!

The DCS forum users lot of time come here first for help and advice, used to that and we learn from it too

 

BTW, I forgot to answer your earlier question on which service pack. I was originally using SP-1 and had all hot fixes, but for some of these rebuilds, especially the later ones, I did not want to spend a lot of time re-updating Windows. On this latest rebuild, I am running SP-1 and all hot fixes again and am almost whole again.

Of course I just gave MS another $10 for the SP-1a CD-ROM, so that should make any future rebuilds much faster!

 

Justin, You could have downloaded the "whole" SP1 image and either burnt it to disk or saved it on another HD or backup. 134MB - Could have saved $10 and put it towards KAV or NOD

Glad your getting sorted, you will soon become our Semantic Symantec

Have fun - Pilli