Trying a new firewall without uninstalling the old one

Here's a (potential) tip:

I've seen statements that one should uninstall one firewall before trying another. In many cases, I do not believe that it is really necessary. You just need to take some steps to make sure that you thoroughly disable the firewall that you are not using.

As an example, I recently decided to try NetVeda to see if I like it. I was using Sygate PF (free) before I decided to try NetVeda. I did not uninstall Sygate, and NetVeda is working fine.

Here's what I did:

1) I used Startup Control Panel to disable the registry entries (there are two) that load Sygate when Windows starts by unchecking the boxes in front of those two lines.

2) I renamed the Sygate folder to "00_Sygate" so that any attempt to automatically load anything from that folder would fail. This probably wasn't really necessary, but was done as a precaution.

3) Rebooted.

Note: I did the above *before* I installed NetVeda.


You can find Startup Control Panel here:
www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml


Phil

 

My first question would be, why not just uninstall Sygate instead of digging thru the registry and disabling a few out of many entries?

Another thing to remember is that some firewalls just don't like ANYTHING present from previously installed ones. One example that I remember is Outpost. I tried installing Outpost once with Kerio installed and even though Kerio was disabled, Outpost BSOD'd on me. I removed Kerio via uninstall, and then all was well.

I see no reason to leave previous firewalls installed when you install a new one. Best advice is to completely remove the previous one first, including possible entries in device manager under hidden devices.

One exception that I know of is CHX-I. I have left CHX-I running while installing most of the other current firewalls without any problems. However, I would not recommend doing this with any other firewall.

 

Because if I uninstall Sygate, I would lose my configuration and all of my rules. And just to try out another firewall that I might not even like.

And it's not difficult at all. Easy as pie, thanks to Startup Control Panel.

It may not work in all cases, but it should work in many cases. Of course, it won't work if the firewall you're trying to install looks for evidence of an existing firewall (even if it's totally disabled) and refuses to install. That happened when I tried to install ZoneAlarm. In that case, the solution was simple: I deleted the ZoneAlarm installer.

Phil

 

Just a note on Sygate for future installs... you can save the configuration by just copying all the .DAT files in the Sygate folder to another location and then copying them back over a new install. I used to do this when I wanted to save my Sygate config also. I still think it's better practice to remove any previous firewall before installing a new one, but if you can get away with it, then fine..

 

Hi
Firewalls sometimes drop a few drivers in the system folder which can startup independent of other components.
In my experience Blue Screens or conflicts occur when installing a firewall and the drivers associated with the currently installed firewall are still running.
For most people disabling is probably more trouble than it's worth because of the extra work invovled in identifing a firewalls drivers and properly disabling them,but on the other hand if you switch between firewalls frequently then you might find disabling more convenient than going through install/uninstall and configuration routines.
You just have to be certain that when disabling a firewall that you stop all it's drivers aswell otherwise you might experience system instability.

regards
Kaupp

 

All,
On the topic question. I do not recommend having two software firewalls installed on the same system (not including MS one just make sure it is off and checked that you have your own solution). Even if Firewall Brand 1 is not running in protection mode some parts may be running and could cause instability while testing, trialing or running firewall Brand 2. In fact I recommend when uninstalling firewalls at least the following be done...

Shut down Firewall Brand 1, reboot then uninstall and reboot again if you were not prompted to do so anyway. Then install Firewall Brand 2 following it's instructions as you are prompted. This is a minumum. With Zone Alarm and Norton it can be a lot more I know from experience.

Did not read above completely Kaupp has stated the same or very similar just a little more good technical detail.

 

That's a good point. Don't you just hate it when software pollutes the Windows folder with their "junk"? It's especially bad when uninstalling doesn't remove that stuff, which sometimes happens.

I never install software without monitoring the installation so I will know what got installed and where. I pay particular attention to what gets put in the C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM folder. To do that, I use this program:

Total Uninstall 2.35

There's a newer version of Total Uninstall, but it's not free. And I want to point out that I never use Total Uninstall to uninstall software, only to monitor installations. The few times that I tried to use it to uninstall something, Windows promptly locked up or starting acting strange.

Phil

 

I think I might know why that happened. I just looked in my Total Uninstall log for Kerio PF 2.1.5, and I noticed that Kerio put a file called Fwdrv.vxd in the C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM folder. Most likely, that VXD gets loaded even if Kerio is disabled. If I recall correctly, I think I had a similar problem when I tried to install and use Sygate PF without uninstalling Kerio 2.1.5. Since Kerio lets you save your configuration and then re-load it later, I just went ahead and uninstalled. As it turned out, it didn't matter since I never went back to Kerio.


Phil

 

Thanks for tip. But I'm pretty sure I tried that once and it didn't work. That's why I didn't uninstall Sygate when I decided to give NetVeda a try. But now that I am starting to (sort of) like NetVeda, I probably should go ahead and uninstall Sygate.


Phil