Windows Firewall Control (WFC) by BiniSoft.org

I am now getting this problem on both my Windows 10 computers. Sometimes it will work and sometimes it will not. The only security software I have in common is AppGuard. Setting AppGuard to install mode does not help and It does not log that it blocks anything.

I have just reinstalled WFC on a spare computer and it still does not work. The icon shows but no screens will show. It stopped working again on my main computer today and a reinstall fixed it on that one.

If I monitor wfc.exe with sysinternals process monitor I get a long sequence of Thread Create, Thread Exit repeating.

 

If you have the possibility, I would try - for testing purposes only of course - complete without AppGuard (deactivate or even uninstall it). So you could find out, it's related to this or not.

 

I uninstalled AppGuard and rebooted. This did not help so I have installed it again.

Thanks.

 

Make sure that the wfc.exe and/or wfcs.exe are not blocked by Windows Defender or any other security software. Also, try to set the start-up type of Windows Firewall Control service as Delayed start. See if this helps. If the service (wfcs.exe) can't access Windows Firewall API at boot time it may remain in an inconsistent state (even if no error is logged and the tray icon reports correctly the Profile) on Windows 10. I already fixed this and the next version will include this fix. But until then, Delayed start could be useful.

 

Stopping wfc.exe with task manager, restarting the service and then restarting wfc.exe has made it work. I can do this for now until it is fixed.

Thanks.

 

Windows Firewall Control v.4.6.0.0

Change log:
- Improved: Many PNG images from the user interface have been replaced with scalable vector images in order to improve the scaling and the effects. The readability of the user interface was increased for the cases when bright colors are used or high contrast Windows themes.
- Improved: The logic behind the Display combo box from Connections Log was updated to improve the speed when loading the most recent entries.
- Fixed: In Windows 10, if the network is not initialized when the service is starting, the service may appear to be started normally even if it is in faulted state. Now, the service closes properly if it fails on startup and will be automatically restarted correctly.
- Fixed: The parser for Security log entries reads and displays wrong remote addresses in Connections Log for some operating systems which are not in English language.

Updated translation strings:
724 = Display
725 = Last 100 connections
726 = Last 500 connections
727 = All connections

One note about the Connections Log. The previous available options from the Display combo box (last day, last three days, last week) were removed because the Security log gets full very quick and always seems to contain the entries from the last tens of minutes, at best a few hours.

Download location: http://binisoft.org/download/wfc4setup.exe
SHA1: 087a4081884b45b349285de3565e9ffac05ad66a

Happy new year!
Alexandru

 

v4.6.0.0 works just fine

Happy New Year 2U2

 

Thank you for this. However, it is still not working property for me. It is still unresponsice after booting. It is better in that I just need to kill and restart the user process and not the service. Does the user process need to retry if the service is not up properly yet?

 

Thanks and best wishes for the New Year! So far it's looking good, the Connections Log is way faster, awesome stuff. Only one question: what happened to the tray-icon? The old one looked better.

 

Hi, had the same Problem, fixed it by adding WFC and WFCS to the exception rules in my Anti-Virus solution ( Bit-Defender 2016 ).

 

Happy new year to ALL

German translation file is sent to BiniSoft.

? Not changed. The change was already in v4.5.0.6 - see here www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/windows-firewall-control-4.347370/page-70#post-2509830

 

Hi,

I am having a strange issue with 4.6.0.0

My PC was all setup and has been working fine with Pale Moon Browser (A special Firefox Build) going through the firewall. I used this particular browser just for using on my VPN connections (Public)
I had a rule to
ALLOW all protocols to ALL address Outbound via Public
BLOCK all protocols to ALL address Outbound via Domain,Private

Last night I wiped my PC and reloaded the OS as it was getting cluttered. I reloaded with Win7
I downloaded the latest WFC (4.6.0.0) and generated the activation code in my account
I installed WFC
I installed Pale Moon Browser
I setup the same rules as before
However I am now being asked to create a new rule everytime I run Pale Moon
I have now setup some 8 individual rules to see if this would work...
ie.
ALLOW TCP protocols to ALL address Outbound via Public
BLOCK TCP protocols to ALL address Outbound via Domain,Private
ALLOW UDP protocols to ALL address Outbound via Public
BLOCK UDP protocols to ALL address Outbound via Domain,Private
---
ALLOW TCP protocols to ALL address Inbound via Public
BLOCK TCP protocols to ALL address Inbound via Domain,Private
ALLOW UDP protocols to ALL address Inbound via Public
BLOCK UDP protocols to ALL address Inbound via Domain,Private

However I am still being asked to create an new outbound rule everytime I start Pale Moon ie.
ALLOW or BLOCK All protocols to ALL address Outbound via Domain,Private,Public

Of course this rule then take preference to the above ones and Pale Moon then still communicates over Domain/Private when Public is down which I do not want.

I tried the same for a few other programs and I keep getting CREATE rule requests. If it's as WFC is some how ignoring some rules.

Any ideas anyone.

 

I can confirm this behavior different programs (Skype and IE so far, out of 10 programs tested). Yet I can't tell whether this issue is WFC related or not, or related to this version or a previous one.

 

1. Are you sure that you are in the Public location ? Please post here a screenshot of your rules like you see them in Manage Rules.
2. Try to disable the block rules that you have created. They are not required when outbound filtering is enabled in Windows Firewall (Medium Filtering profile in WFC) because they are by default blocked if there is no allow rule defined. Does this change anything ?
3. While you see duplicate notifications from WFC, the program is actually blocked or allowed ?
4. Did you change the default Advanced notifications settings from the Notifications tab ?
5. What other security programs do you use on this machine ? PeerBlock, MBAM, etc ?
6. If you try WFC on a different machine or in a virtual machine do you still have the same problems ?

Looking forward to hear from you.

I can confirm that nothing has changed in the logic of the notifications system so it should work the same it did with the previous version.

 

1. The whole Manage Rules doesn't fit in a single screenshot, instead I took one of Skype rule properties:

Spoiler

2. It did the trick. I use Medium Filtering profile.
3. It's actually allowed, it wasn't blocked ever.
4. Didn't change anything there lately, although I don't recall doing any in the past. It is set "Use generic block..." Really don't know whether this a default setting.
5. Look at my sign.
6. Haven't tried this but I guess you've got an idea now of what's going on don't you?

 

OK I see, I was still using quite an old version of WFC, I never felt the need to upgrade, it was working fine for me.

Is this a good idea? I've noticed that choosing "all allowed connections" will most of the time show the connections from the current day. So what if people want to view the connections from other days?

 

I have 4.6.0.0 and it still has the options to choose last day, last 3 days, last week.
Since the only log entries are for today, it doesn't matter at all, but, the option is still there.
Should it be 'gone' or it just doesn't work anymore?

 

That's weird, I don't see them at all.

 

Use you not the original language file? Or in other words, non actual language files (not translated the newest strings) display the old values, if the strings are still in use - which is the case for this change ...

 

If the program is actually allowed but there is a new notification it means that there was a connection that was blocked, but maybe not because of Windows Firewall but the source may be another security software.

Try with these settings.

It is not possible. To view the connections from another day, you have to enable logging in Windows Firewall for an hour, then disable it, then enable it again for another hour in next day and so on. This is the only case when you will have entries from different days. If the logging is enabled, the oldest entries will be always overwritten by the newest entries because the log file has a maximum size. Off course, the size of the log file could be increased but this will make the Connections Log very slow because it will have to deal with too many connections that have to be parsed.

If you use a translation file it is time to update it. Those strings were updated.

 

I don't knowingly use a translation file, I simply install the latest version over top of the previous one.
I just looked and found "wfcEN.lng" dated 2015-08-14.
Where should I go to get a newer version or should I simply delete the existing one?
(I may have downloaded it to attempt to 'shorten' some column headings so I'll just try deleting it and see what happens)

 

That did the trick, I no longer see the options.
Thanks,
J

 

OK, so showing connections per day is not possible? To me it's not a real big deal, but if you needed to do some investigating, it would be handy. BTW, a small request: can you make "Manage Rules" remember column sorting?

 

Just chose to display all entries. If your log will contain entries from the entire day or from the previous day, you will see them all. I can make the Manage Rules to remember the last sorted column but is not a good idea because a user will probably use a sorting and then when he adds a new rule, it won't be added on top of the list because it is the sorted state. Then I will receive a lot of emails with "a new bug" that the rules are not created.

 

Hi,

I finally sort out what was happening and it was not WFC related. It was some new code that was implemented in my VPN.

PIA VPN had released a fix for some security issues however the fix was to block alot of traffic LAN/WAN. On the PIA VPN forum it turned out many people has been having the same issues, and I had to downgrade to a previous version and I got all my LAN/WAN traffic back. They have now released another version but I am holding back this time before implement this.
https://www.privateinternetaccess.c...dated-mac-windows-client-v-56-released#latest


I have another issue though (not related to the VPN) and that is on my new media server but I will start a different post for this.