What is AppGuard

That's good news, Eirik - thanks for taking up the slow boot time issue with the developers.

BTW, have you had a chance to consider my suggestion in post #597 to add a Deny tab to the Exception Folders settings dialog box. Adding this feature would allow Guarded Applications to be prevented from being able to modify a recovery partition by excluding it from Extended User space?

 

Yes, I did pass on your recommendation, which strongly resembles one I've personally made. I want the next version to show the user what AppGuard perceives as 'extended user space'. So, if something shows up or does not, the advanced user that looks here would be aware. I also like how that would simplify things for the user. Likewise, the allow/deny checkboxes are simpler and more compact.

Cheers,

Eirik

 

Just curious when is there going to be a new version released?

 

We're working on our roadmap this week. I hope to provide an answer to that question next week, possibly the next.

Cheers,

Eirik

 

thank you for the response, please post a link when you get a chance.

 

Thanks for responding Eirik; that's exactly what I was hoping to hear.

Regards

 

Hi All,

I got word back from engineering regarding the 'slow start-ups on WinXP'. Below is an excerpt from their report:

We clocked boot times using a tool called BootTimer.exe on the following system:

Windows XP SP3
Intel Pentium 4 CPU 1.8 GHz
1.0 GB RAM
No other Security Software on Host

Boot-up times:
Without Appguard: 56.484, 57.546, 59.568, 64.656, 67.546, 65.203
AVERAGE: 61.834

Appguard trial period: 60.187, 64.204, 67.234, 60.281, 60.203, 61.046
AVERAGE: 62.193

Appguard activated: 63.171, 60.579, 60.906, 60.671, 61.468, 64.468
AVERAGE: 61.802

Average boot time with or without AppGuard, before or after activation, remained constant (within margin of error). There seems to be one or more other environmental variables acting on the hosts where the customers observed boot time increases.



We'll continue to keep an eye out for more such observations. And, when we conduct our next round of regression testing with 3rd party security software, we'll explicitly look for similar observations. Thoughts/questions?

Cheers,

Eirik

 

Hi Eirik,

My OS is Windows XP SP3, and I too tested with no other security software installed. As previously reported, AppGuard lengthens my boot time by approximately 30 seconds.

I've also tried repeatedly exiting the AppGuard GUI via the system tray icon then relaunching the GUI. On average it takes around 21 seconds for the tray icon to reappear after launch. This suggests that the delay in loading the GUI is a large percentage of the total increase at boot time.

Also, every time I use the GUI to make a configuration change to add new applications or folders, the machine has to be rebooted before the change takes effect. I don't know whether this is normal behaviour, and how AppGuard is supposed to work, or whether it indicates a possible synchronisation/timing issue between the AppGuard GUI and the AppGuard service that may also somehow be involved in the slow start-up times.

The only reason I'm mentioning this again is just in case it helps to provide some additional perspective that may assist with a diagnosis as to the possible causes of the problem.

Regards

 

just tested this few days ago with xp service pack 2 and it is all ok

 

On your machine maybe, but I'm definitely experiencing a problem so not OK for me. It doesn't seem to be an SP3 issue though, because Eirik already said that engineering carried out their tests on an SP3 platform and didn't manage to reproduce the problem.

 

why do you think i refuse to get the service pack 3 eh it cause me so much trouble and i mean it all kind of problems

 

That assumes that SP3 is the cause of this problem but there is no evidence (so far) to support that. Thanks for posting your observation though because I agree that you might have a point.

It would be interesting to know if anybody else who has had this problem is using XP SP2 or indeed Vista or Windows 7. If not, then that could just point to XP SP3 being the cause on a small minority of machines. I assume that AppGuard must be working OK for the vast majority of users though, otherwise there probably would have been more reports on Wilders than just the two (quark59 and myself) to date.

 

i hope others post too to see if they have same problem true very true plus all pc's are diferent

 

Thanks jmonge - I hope so too. I'm sure the AppGuard engineers will get to the bottom of this eventually, even if it is only affecting a small number of users.

Regards

 

yes and also they include pasword protection also for the reason that i share my pc's with other familly members

 

I've been waiting for the password option too!

 

this will be very cool to have it password protection i hope they listen to us

 

One more fun item to add on startup!

Dave

 

My understanding would be a password to protect setting changes, not a login password. I don't want more login passwords either!!!

 

ofcourse to protect the program from ever changing configuration with out your knowlodge

 

I've added cmd.exe, regsvr32.exe, and rundll32.exe to the list of guarded applications, as recommended in the AppGuard Technology White Paper, and I'm also considering guarding msiexec.exe.

Guarding msiexec.exe would prevent a downloaded .msi file from using the Windows Installer to launch from user space and install software onto the system, but I don't know whether there would be negative side effects, such as the possibility of Windows Automatic Updates not working, etc.

Does anybody know whether msiexec.exe can be safely guarded or is this likely to cause problems?

 

Test or no test, I agree with your(pegr) findings on this. AppGuard DOES add a minimum of 30 seconds to my bootup on XP and Win 7. My wish for a new or old PC would be one of those Blue Ridge Network test machines. It seems to run AppGuard perfectly and without problems. I really like AppGuard which does come with top notch support but for now, I'm sticking with SRP.

 

My Win Updates are set to download and notify. I've always had to fully disable AppGuard in order for the updates to install.

 

Hello all,
I've partially rectified my delayed logon time with AppGuard. I currently use Symantec Workspace Virtualization (old Altiris SVS) to virtualize some of my applications. If I disable starting all of my virtualized applications automatically, my logon time is greatly reduced. It's actually in time with what Eirik has posted!
Allen

 

I thought that might be the case. I don't think I'm going to add msiexec.exe to the list of guarded applications, just in case it does cause a problem.

Thanks for replying.