Questions re SpywareGuard & SpywareBlaster

Hi, all! I'm new to this forum and wish to express my appreciation for the great products you are providing for free! I'm running WinXP SP2. I scanned several pages of this sub-forum and didn't find answers to my questions. Please excuse this post if they have already been answered elsewhere.

Re SpywareGuard 2.2, I just installed the Minimal Setup version and when I run Live Update, I get the following message: "Error Downloading Updates: There was an error downloading updates. The last working definitions have been loaded from backups." The definitions date is 8/30/03 in the SpywareGuard main window. I uninstalled the program and installed it again and have tried to run Live Update several times with the same result. My ZoneAlarm firewall is configured so that SpywareGuard Live Update is a trusted internet site.

Re SpywareBlaster, the program isn't in my startup menu (which SpywareGuard does by default). Does it have to be started up to provide protection when my computer is connected to the internet? If it does, how do I set it to start whenever I start my computer?

Thanks for your help.

 

Hello,

For SWG, u can always manually update. Take a look here for those,

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=25749

As for SWB, it is not a running process. All u do is enable all protection and check for updates every week or so and that's it. Very simple but effective.

FAQ on this here,

http://www.javacoolsoftware.info/kb/idx/0/052/article/?pt_sid=d1b60b7521015cf7e58df80df67d24a9


snowbound

 

Thanks for your prompt reply! I downloaded the SpywareGuard updates manually as you suggested, then closed and re-opened the program twice and the definitions date still shows as 8/30/03. Is a re-boot required or should I be concerned about this?

 

The correct date for the latest definition updates to SpywareGuard should be 1/22/04.

A reboot should not be required

 

I still get the same error message from Live Update and the definitions date is still 8/30/03.

 

Either the LiveUpdate doesn't work anymore or your firewall did block the connection attempt. My theory was that LiveUpdate connects to an unusual port (for most apps, it's destination port 80) and that my firewall blocked it. You having this problem with ZoneAlarm would appear to blow that theory out of the water, since it doesn't care what ports a trusted app uses, iirc.

Manually downloading the updates should have worked. Are you sure you downloaded them into right place? Were you asked whether you wanted to replace the old files with the new ones?

 

Along that same line of questions by Brinn....when you downloaded them manually did they indeed get saved as .dtb file extensions....for instance def1.dtb....or did they mistakenly get saved as def1.dtb.txt file extension.

If you do not mind....would you double check that they did get placed in the proper folder and also as the proper file type extension....C:\Program Files\Spywareguard and .dtb extension.

Also....if you temporarily disable ZoneAlarm are you then able to download the updates via the program ?

 

I just repeated the process of following Snowbound's link, right-clicking each update file, selecting Save Target as, and navigating to the open SG folder. This time, of course, I was asked if I wanted to replace each existing file, which I confirmed. I then closed and re-opened SG. Definitions date is still 8/30/03.

The following update files are in the SG folder: def1.dtb, def1.dtb.txt, def2.dtb, def2.dtb.txt, dlbdata1.dtb, dlbdata1.dtb.txt, dlbdata2.dtb, dlbdata2.dtb.txt.

In the Access column of ZoneAlarm, both Trusted and Internet are set to Allow. I tried setting both Trusted and Internet in the Server column to Allow and got the same error message trying to run Live Update. I shut down ZoneAlarm and ran Live Update...same error message.

 

If we use those first two as an example....is the def1.dtb.txt file a more recent date than def1.dtb file ?

If so....rename def1.dtb to def1.old and rename def1.dtb.txt to def1.dtb

Do this to all the other .txt files that have .dtb in them also.

In the future if you have to download them again....or you can do another manual download now if you wish....be sure when you select Save As or Save Target As to place quotation marks around the file name.... "def1.dtb". That way it will save the file with the .dtb extension only.

 

Snowbound did not mention re-naming the files or using quotation marks in his post, but I tried it (re-naming) and it worked. Definitions date is 1/22/04. I don't understand why the SG update process is so *!@#*?!*#!? complicated compared to every other program I have!

 

Glad you were able to finally get the latest definition updates.

In regards to the Error Downloading Updates: message....are you using any type of Download accelerator program ?

 

Nope...No download accelerator programs present.

 

Besides the usual suspects, I'm running the following programs on my PC: Avast anti-virus, Ad-Aware, Microsoft AntiSpyware, Spybot, Spyware Blaster, SpywareGuard, ProcessGuard, Process Explorer, autoruns, Snoopfree Privacy Shield, HijackThis, Everest Home Edition, Belarc Advisor, WinPatrol, Karen's Cookie Viewer, Karen's Window Watcher, ZoneAlarm firewall, and Eraser 5.7. Maybe I'm getting too paranoid? Any known conflicts between any of these??

 

Oops...Rootkit Revealer, too.

 

I manually updated SG and had no problem. Obviously, the files you downloaded were saved as .txt files and couldn't be used by SG in that form. Why that happened is the mystery. I don't believe it has anything to do with conflicts with your other security apps.