Zone Alarm 5.0.590.043 release (21 June 2004)

Zone Labs has released new updates to our 5.0 products. These updates fix a number of compatibility and stability issues. Customers can update to these by using the manual "Check For Update" functionality in your product. To manage the download bandwidth, it will be a few days before Zone Labs turns on the notification for users whose products automatically check for updates.

To do this, follow these steps:

1. Open the interface to ZoneAlarm (or ZoneAlarm with Antivirus, ZoneAlarm Pro, or ZoneAlarm Security Suite) by double-clicking its icon in the System Tray, at the bottom-right of your screen.

2. Click the Overview section, on the left of the interface.

3. Click the Preferences tab.

4. Click the Check For Update button.

If you would like to download the new EXEs via your browser, you can visit these URLs:

For ZoneAlarm: http://www.zonelabs.com/zadownload

For ZoneAlarm with Antivirus: http://www.zonelabs.com/zaavdownload

For ZoneAlarm Pro: http://www.zonelabs.com/zapdownload

For ZoneAlarm Security Suite: http://www.zonelabs.com/zasuitedownload

 

Thanks Marti for the update

 

Thx Marti. Hopefully this will fix some of the more glaring issues.

 

Goody... I hope that this will finally get rid of the feud between NOD32 and ZA...

 

What feud are you talking about? There isn't a NOD32/ZA 5 conflict.

 

It appears not for some yet by reading the ZoneAlarm forum.......

 

Hello, Marti. I manually tried to check for updates, and ZA told me that I was already up-to-date. Why? See pics.

 

...continued. Here is my current version.

 

Same version here .015

 

If you go back and read the first paragraph of my initial post, last sentence, it says

"To manage the download bandwidth, it will be a few days before Zone Labs turns on the notification for users whose products automatically check for updates."

They will turn on some servers (possibly tomorrow (Tue)) and then more the next day, and so.

If you want to download the update manually, the links are in my initial post.

 

Yes, I read that. I tried a MANUAL version check.

Are you trying to say that the feature which allows Zone Alarm to check for updates will not detect this latest update, whether you use this feature manually or if you let it try automatically? If so, you didn't say that.

 

That is what it says here though

 

I know what it says, but it means that whether you have ZA set to auto check for updates, or manually check for updates from the ZA program, you won't see the update until the servers for your area are turned on.

I don't know how they turn on just some servers, it might be by IP number, or ....

 

I realize that, I was trying to show that to D&C

 

I was thinking that maybe when ZA checks automatically it checks one server, and when you press the button to check manually, it checks a different server (based on his remark - "Customers can update to these by using the manual "Check For Update" functionality in your product". Not too many ways to take that. Now I know manually and automaitcally is the same thing. Thanks for your patience.

 

I got the same message as D&C and we have the same product..v.015. The odd thing is yesterday and this afternoon the status page indicated on the right side that an update was available and click here to download.

But now as I'm typing this message it has a big fat check mark in the box and says that the firewall is up to date...why am I getting mixed signals from ZA 5.0

Is this a girl playing hard to get or what?

But my real issue is this...Marti hope you can read this.

I was hooking up my router and downloading the latest firmware from dlink when out of nowhere ZA flagged that a new update was available. So I downloaded it and saved it for install later.

It was the v.043 that was saved. So I went back to the folder after I was through with my router and installed the update.

while install was going on it asked me if this was an upgrade, new install etc. so i clicked yes 'coz i was upgrading from .015 to .043 then it finished installing.

I restarted and things loaded up normally including net connection

Then Windows xp shut down and a blue screen appeared saying that it shut down to prevent damage to unit.

This is the exact text that came out the 1st time. It is rather long so bear with me on this:

A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer .

page_fault_in_nonpaged-area

if this is the 1st time you've seen this stop error screen, restart your comp. If this screen appears again, follow these steps:

Check to make sure any new HW/SW is properly installed. If this a new install, ask your HW/SW manufacturer for any windows updates you might need. If problem continues, disable/remove any newly installed HW/SW.

Disable BIOS memeory options such as caching or shadowing. If you need to use safe modeto remove/disable components, restart your comp, press f8 to select advanced startup options and then select safe mode.

Technical Information:

***stop: 0x00000050(0xbad0b148, 0x00000000, 0x8059f60d, 0x00000000)

Beginning dump of physical memory
Physical memory dup complete.
Contact system admin. or tech support group for further assistance.

So I restarted and took out my router. The ZA v0.43 was still active. And then I got another blue screen with the same message but the technical info changed as such:

driver_irql_not_less_or_equal

*** stop: 0x000000d1(0x00000000, 0x00000002, 0x00000001,0xed63ab6b)

another time it gave out the same stop numbers but the last part was 700b6b instead of the 63ab6b

then this one:

***vs datant.sys-address ed63ab6b base at ed60f000 datestamp 40d01b2a

same as above but: ed700b6b base at ed 6d5000, datestamp 40d01b2a

that's it. I unintsalled ZA and installed the old one that i got v.015 and everything went back to normal so I hooked up my router again and a new version flag came up again about ZA but i disregarded it this time and chose remind after 60 days.

Right now as far as my basic computing mind knows...everything is back to normal. Router is doing OK I hope. I thought it was the router but the blue screen still came up w/o the router hooked up and no net connection. So I came to the conclusion that something went awry with my install of the new ZA.

I didn't not uninstall the old version the 1st time 'coz I was thinking it was an upgrade and not a new install. The 2nd time I removed everything and installed the new one but the stop screen still came up so I removed it again and went back to the old one and as I said it says that the firewall is up to date...

What is my diagnosis I thought it was a bug that most new versions of SW have. I'm starting to like ZA but I got a bit disappointed when that error occured. But I want the new upgrade still.

Thanks for any comment...

 

I'd go back to 4.5. There are still some outstanding issues with 5.x. Basically if you start up ZA when an app calls out to the net, it goes boom. Have to do it from windows startup.

Rather than updating, I'd recommend backing up your settings and doing a clean uninstall. If you go into the ZoneAlarm folder in the program menu, right click on Uninstall ZA, Properties, Target... change it from

"C:\Program Files\Zone Labs\ZoneAlarm\zauninst.exe"

to

"C:\Program Files\Zone Labs\ZoneAlarm\zauninst.exe" /clean

Reboot, reinstall and import your settings.


D&C, it's a propagation issue. I wouldn't be upset or feel slighted. If anything you should be happy. There is the chance that they didn't want to do a full blown release to the update servers until they figured out if the fixes they made were effective.

You can test the crap out of something, even with some massive emulators and huge pool of beta testers, but once it gets in the wild, there's no guarantee it'll work as well as it did in testing.

 

Boy, ain't that the truth.

FWIW, I d/l'd the free ZAPro Upgrade for users of ZA+ and upgraded right over it last night.

Call me crazy...

 

Crazy

 

Hey tazdevl, to follow-up on your post, below is a link to a lengthy thread in the Zone Labs forum on problems encountered in the new Zone Alarm 5.0 upgrade. I upgraded from a Zone Alarm Pro 4.5 version to 5.0 and I'm very sorry I did! The first post on the thread provides instructions on uninstalling ZA 5.0 using the /clean option you mentioned, then reinstalling v5.0, or reverting back to an install of a 4.5 version. The thread also provides links to Zone Labs' instructions for uninstalling ZA. Apparently, the /clean uninstall option you mentioned eliminates the need to edit the registry in the uninstall process. The Zone Labs uninstall instructions require you to edit the registry.

The difficulties I've experienced with ZA 5.0 are widespread, as evidenced by reading the Zone Labs Forum. I know because I've combed the forum for solutions to my problems (my wife & kids blame me, of course, for our brand new piece of junk PC). BTW, many, many, of the solutions offered to ZA firewall users are the same: revert back to version 4.5!

http://forum.zonelabs.org/zonelabs/board/message?board.id=inst&message.id=11594

BTW, can someone tell me how (or where to go to find out) to insert hyperlinks and those gray strips with another member's comments in my post? I pasted the above link in the hyperlink icon's pop-up box, but the link didn't come out active in this Reply window.

Regards,
Stro

 

I too have become dissatisfied with ZA. I've been experimenting with the Kerio Personal Firewall which I found at wilders.org. Its more configure-able (if that's a word) than ZA, blocks a ton more traffic w/o any noticeable difference in what I'm able to do online and otherwise (which leads me to believe that ZA wasn't doing the job), and its FREE. It also has an ad blocker and pop-up blocker which you can turn on/off...I'm pretty much sold on it. You can get the free version here.

CAG

 

It's still a bit buggy.

 

Hi, Stro

Is this what you mean.

If so you type without the v

 

In addition to using the quote tags as TheQuest mentioned, you can also use the quote button on the bottom of the post you wish to quote. This will quote the entire post, but can be edited to quote a particular paragraph, sentence, etc. Or when you have the post reply window open, you will see an option on the toolbar for the quote tags as well.

Regards,

CrazyM