Windows Firewall Control (WFC) by BiniSoft.org

What's the go with Duplicate Rules?

I've read the guide but I already worked out how to see duplicate rules but I still don't know what to do with them. Is there any benefit in deleting duplicate rules? Is there any disadvantage having duplicate rules? Do I just leave 'em alone?

Thanks!

 

What that means it a rule that was or is added twice, this can cause conflicts so cleaning up duplicate rules is a good idea.

 

I reset my startup by allowing Kerish to remove all, then toggled the startup option in WFC settings and all is good now.
If it happens again I will trace it as you suggest, but so far all is well. Kerish may have added it by mistake.
As far as me adding it, I know to toggle the check box within settings

 

So maybe I should reset Windows Firewall and only add new rules as needed?

So why the option in WFC to Duplicate Rules??

 

I've been trying Windows Firewall Control 4 for a few days but, I consistently get this were freezing with the mouse when I look at the Connections Log. I'm also seeing that C:\Windows\system32\svchost.exe is still blocked even though I've right clicked and made and allow rule... also after a few minutes its possible that the computer freezes completely, not even CTRL ALT DELETE does anything. Whenever I don't have the Windows Firewall Control application window present. the Computer has no freezing issues, but when I do have any one of the windows up and running, the mouse and presumably the computer is freezing intermittently and in worse case scenario leads eventually to a total freeze where nothing works except a hard power kill.
Can anyone provide any help?

 

If you don't know what to do with them, you leave them alone. If you have duplicate rules, there is no disadvantage other than having a large set of rules which may contain useless duplicate rules. They are harmless, but most of us prefer to keep a clean set of rules, with no duplicates, with no invalid rules.

No, duplicate rules exist also in the default Windows Firewall set of rules. Some of them are in a several group names, but with a different name. Depending on which operating system features you enable or disable (File and Printer Sharing, Remote Desktop Connection, etc) some of these rule are enabled or disabled. The rules that are common to different features are duplicated, there is no "Common" group. This is why duplicate rules exists even in the default set of rules.

 

Ok, thanks.

It's just that I ran Tweaking.com - Windows Repair on that machine today and noticed it added a heap of new [duplicate] rules, but if they're not going to cause any problems I will leave them.

"If you don't know what to do with them, you leave them alone".

 

@alexandrud

I'm not sure if the following is a bug or not. However: the behaviour is not right, so I decided to report it:

Sometimes - perhaps after HIBERNATION only (COULD be also after sleep), the WFC tray icon disappears. The service is still running and I can start the WFC GUI. It SEEMS so that WFC is the one and only tray icon with this behaviour.

Maybe you can initiate a reloading of tray icon after hibernate/sleep or something like that to ensure that it appears again.

Greetings
Alpengreis

 

Understood.

The reason behind the question is that sometimes I would like to add a new range of addresses to multiple block rules that are specific for different programs.

I am going to try what you suggested. Thank you.

 

The process wfc.exe is gone from Task Manager either or just the tray icon is missing ? When this happens again, please check this.
I tried on my test systems, hibernation and also the sleep mode. Neither of them closed wfc.exe which was running just fine after the wake up. Unfortunately I can't reproduce this. I do believe that you have this behavior but if it is random, then it is hard to provide a solution. Normally, the process should not close out of nowhere. Please check the Application log in Event Viewer and WFC log to see if you see any exception logged there. If not, it is pretty hard to catch this scenario.

 

I can confirm the issue, though I never use hibernation or sleep, on WIN7 64bit. From time to time the tray icon has disappeared. As mentioned, the service still runs and the gui can be manually restarted.
I will investigate, too, in case it occurs again.

 

Thanks for answering, Alexandru. As I wrote, the service is still there and runs. Also, I had not opened the WFC GUI before Hibernation/Sleep. I had this - If I remember correctly - also on my older Installation with Win 7 already rarely.

It's nothing dramatically and I can easely start the WFC GUI nevertheless. Just the tray icon is no more there until I make a system reboot (probably logout/login would be enough).

I have no log because the only "crash" was the tray icon.

And a bit weird is that WFC is the one and only tray icon with such a "behaviour" ...

No worries ... it's indeed random (it SEEMS so) ... if not and I can tell you more (the reason), I will make another report then.

 

Hi, can I recommend a small usability request to the GUI, specifically the right click context menu, INC a quick and bad paint job to illustrate my point, probably better then my words can.

http://i.imgur.com/vgTGCEr.png

That Profile > Arrow just takes time to navigate, it's not doing anything but waste time in order to quick swap profiles, I could maybe see the point of it if it were preventing option clutter, but there's hardly anything there to clutter.

and the "Main Panel" it just redundant.

Anyway just something to consider.

 

I do not consider the Main Panel entry redundant. Indeed, it is launched anyway on left click, but for the right click context menu, I think it should be there. Regarding the Profiles submenu, I made it like this on purpose to avoid accidental switch of the profile. Sometimes, system tray applications may have a little delay and the user may press again outside of the context menu to close an unresponsive (delayed) context menu, but at the point the user clicks the second time, the context menu just appeared and the action is performed. Personally, I would like to keep the context menu with the Profiles as a sub menu.

 

Why it could happen that I am getting duplicated popups? one from WF and another from WFC
This had happened me in different Windows versions at different points in time

 

@guest

From WF? The original Windows Firewall Advanced Security creates never popups for OUTGOING traffic ... on the other side WFC creates never popups for INBOUND traffic ...

Can you give more details?

 

Please press F1 in any WFC window to open the user manual and read the following topic:
User interface > Main Panel > Notifications > How does the notifications system work?
It will answer your question. These are two different things, they are not duplicates.

 

What if I emailed you my Windows Firewall Rules? Perhaps if you have, or could find some spare time you could trim the fat so to speak and delete the useless duplicate rules for me.

I can certainly understand if you're too busy for that.

Cheers.

 

Please read again my previous answer related to your rules set: https://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/windows-firewall-control-4.347370/page-126#post-2674159
If you are a home user, delete all inbound rules, use the WFC recommend set of rules as a starting point and add new allow rules when you launch new programs which don't have yet any rule. That's all. It is not complicated. Sending me your rules for cleaning them up, is a polite NO.

 

Fair enough, I completely understand.

Yep, I've done that.

What you didn't say, or I quite possible missed it, was to delete all outbound rules and use WFC recommended set as a starting point. Anyway, I've done that now and instead of 315 rules I've so far only got 65.

The newbie factor is knowing for sure what I should or shouldn't allow.

 

You mean this

I doubt the software for which I have seen the poups requires incoming traffic. I have never accepted those poups and the software still works
I will take a look when I have the PC I took that quote from the web

We are talking about this, right?

https://goo.gl/images/zgbSbm

 

Most programs will work even if you don't allow inbound access for them. If you saw that dialog, it is displayed by Windows Firewall itself when a software wants to open a port to listen for incoming connections.

 

Namely and in my own experience: browsers like chromium ones.

 

have you confirmed this new method works fine on windows 8.1? thanks.

It seems you have changed to a new buggy API system that cannot delete rules? but netsh works fine on windows 8.1, so do you also use the API on windows 8.1 and does deleting rules now not work because of what you did for windows 10?

If yes please make it so windows 8.1 and 7 still use netsh thanks.

 

I just checked on a Windows 8 machine and everything works as expected. The delete was always made through Windows Firewall API and it works correctly on Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10. For the behavior that you have reported, please check your antivirus if it doesn't block WFC service from doing what it is supposed to do. The problem seems to be something on your side. There are no other reports with this problem.

The deleting problem was only on a specific build of Windows 10 Redstone 3, which was fixed by Microsoft in their next build.