Smart Security 4 and Realtek Teaming - Win7 x64

I did a search on this topic and found this thread from 2009. Wasn't very helpful

I'm in a similar boat. I recently upgraded my PC and had specifically bought hardware that would allow me to set up an LACP trunk to my switch (specs listed below). I'm hoping my slightly different scenario might enable ESET to rectify the problem.

I had ESS 4.2.71.2 running nicely using only a single NIC, but couldn't get it to connect to the switch with an LACP trunk configured - "Network cable unplugged". I had tried numerous drivers and a couple of different version of the "Realtek Ethernet Diagnostic Tool" (used to configure teaming), but all had the same result.

I removed the "Eset Personal Firewall" service from the two physical NIC's (It wasn't present in the Local Area Connection titled "Realtek Virtual Miniport Driver for Teaming"). Immediately it detected a connection but was unable to establish DHCP parameters or even static addressing, essentially locking it as an "Unidentified connection". I'd tried relaxing Windows' networking options and managed to manually configure it as a "Work" (private) network, but it still remained as an "Unidentified connection".

I tried disabling ESS firewall, with no effect. Then I disabled "real-time file system protection" and voila! It worked!

I knew the firewall wasn't completely functional since I'd removed the "Eset Personal Firewall" service from the two physical LAN connections, and also 'cos it didn't exist on the virtual connection either. I thought at that point perhaps uninstalling and reinstalling ESET would mean that it might properly install on the virtual connection. Part the way through the installation I was greeted with a STOP 0xD1 BSoD on RtTeam60.sys.

After rebooting, ESET was reporting that it couldn't access the firewall configuration data (or to that effect) and the real-time protection along with the other key features (antivirus, firewall, anti spam, etc) were all not working.

I should also add that after all this, I tried configuring LACP without ESET SS being installed and it worked flawlessly. All this seems to point at an issue with ESET SS...

I absolutely LOVE ESET SS and it would greatly pain me to have to switch to something else to get around this issue. I'd be willing to pay for a business or server version if I knew it would work with Realtek's teaming drivers.

Specs:

• Core i7-2600
• Gigabyte P67A-UD7 (Realtek 8111E NIC's)
• 8GB Corsair XMS 1600MHz DDR3 RAM (passed Memtest86+)
• Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit SP1
• ESET Smart Security 4.2.71.2

Connecting to an HP ProCurve 1810G-8 switch.

Any other details required, just let me know. I will also email this message to ESET Support.

Thanks!

 

I've already received a response from ESET about this. If a solution is reached, I'll post the results here

 

During bug testing, I inadvertantly found a solution which ESET said "seems to be acceptable for both sides".

The BSOD arises if you have configured teaming prior to installing ESET SS. So the idea is to install ESET SS first, then configure teaming.

There are a handful of issues here. The first is the "Network cable unplugged" issue, which may arise if you already have ESET installed and have configured teaming. The solution is to go into the properties of the two physical network adaptors (via the "Network Connections" window) and uncheck "ESET Personal Firewall" from both of them. At this point, the network should identify and connect. If it doesn't and comes up as "Unidentified connection", you've encountered the second issue.

If you encounter this second issue, you may find that the only way to get Windows 7 to detect the network is to shut down most of ESET SS's functionality. The way around this for me at least was to uninstall as per ESET's instructions and then reinstall.

As mentioned earlier, it's important that teaming is not configured when you install ESET SS:

1. Remove the teaming configuration
2. Remove SS using the ESETUninstaller tool and the instructions provided (not the ).
3. Reinstall ESET using the latest version.
4. Uncheck ESET Personal Firewall from the LAN connections as described above.
5. Configure teaming

I'll see if I can provide ESET with a BSOD memory dump tomorrow and if anything changes, will edit this post to reflect that.