another Windows Firewall Control?

Me neither. If you see the change log, nowhere is stated that such a feature was implemented. The logging feature is not a priority. Notifications system is much more important and useful. Log feature for the blocked outgoing connections exists at the Security event log level, but there is no view in WFC that can show them with a proper formatting. In the future.

 

Too lazy to search this.. but have you noticed that WFC loses rules sometimes?
I mean the rules list is empty! Only quick fix for this is to restart WFC.

 

WFC not loading on startup i have checked msconfig and the startup folder and both are enabled and the program has start with windows enabled, but still wont start with windows. the program seems to work fine apart from this minor niggle. i am using 3.5.06 and windows 7 x64

 

If the list of rules is empty it means that Windows Firewall Control Service (wfcs.exe) is not running. If you start wfc.exe and it can't find the wfcs.exe and can't connect to the Windows Service, it will first try to start the service (wfcs.exe) and then it will launch. Please make sure that Windows Firewall Control Service is set to Automatic and running. This is why, when you restart wfc.exe it will have again the rules. The rules are not gone, but WFC can't retrieve them because the service is not available.

When you enable "Start with Windows" a new shortcut is created in the following folder with the following name:

"C:\Users\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp\Window Firewall Control.lnk"

This folder should be accessible to all users from your PC, so the program can start at user logon. Please make sure that this file is created on the specified folder.

If you created a new user account after WFC was installed, the newly created user won't see this shortcut until you disable and enable again the "Start with Windows" checkbox. If this is your case, please do so. If this does not solve your problem, try to add manually a shortcut to wfc.exe to your current user StartUp folder. Also, please verify in Task Manager if the process wfc.exe is running but for some reason the icon from the system tray is not showing.

Looking forward to hear from you.

 

Service is running and automatic.

 

i cant find the folder you mention above even when enabling hidden files view,the all users doesnt exist just a folder name "Gazzer", and "public" i have a single user account with me as admin

 

The Startup folder is located at: C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs

 

This happens all the time or this is randomly ? For example, do you use Hibernation or Sleep ? The list is empty after restoring the computer state or it is empty in other situations ? Unfortunately, I can't reproduce the scenario. I will do some more tests.

You must also uncheck "Hide protected operating system files" from Folder Options. In this way you will see all folders. As MrElectrifyer said, you can find the StartUp folder under the following path: "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp"

 

Version 3.6.0.0 available
Thank you for your support and your feedback which helped me to improve this software with every version.

What's new:
- New: The default font used in the application was changed from Segoe to MS Sans Serif. The Segoe font was causing display errors on Windows versions that use asian fonts.
- Updated: "Create new rules from..." where the user can search in a specific folder for executable files is now available for all users.
- Updated: The user interface was reworked to display properly with the new font on all DPI settings.

This version is an important update because displaying problems were reported also on different Windows versions. I hope that the rendering problems are gone forever with this version. This version was tested on Windows 8 and Windows 7 Home Premium Japanese.

Also, the webpage of the application was updated. Here is the URL: http://www.binisoft.org/wfc.php

Download location:
http://binisoft.org/download/wfc.exe

Your feedback is welcome.

Have a nice day,
Alexandru

Here is a screenshot with the most important views from the application.

 

Randomly. I don't use hibernation or sleep.

 

That looks a really detailed and fully customisable firewall.Is it running stably?
i really like the look of it.what is it like on resources etc.?
Regards.

 

personally speaking i have not found any major bugs or problems, just minor niggles that have mostly been fixed. as for stability i have only been using the program for about a week but so far no stability problems

 

Thank you! Running fine so far. No problems.

 

checked again in the CORRECT folder and the shortcut is there and also in the startup menu section and updated to 3.6.0.0 but still not starting on bootup

 

Ok. Try to add manually a shortcut to wfc.exe to your current user StartUp folder. Also, please verify in Task Manager if the process wfc.exe is running but for some reason the icon from the system tray is not showing. Do you use any optimization software that prevents startup programs from launching ? If the shortcut is in the right location and if it's pointing to the correct path of wfc.exe, it should start the program automatically. If not, the programs that are specified in your startup folder are not executed. Try to add another program to the startup folder and see if that program is executed at user logon.

 

Wow alexandrud, did I hear correctly that you wrote this gem? If so, to think I actually debated with you in a thread about FW's...

That scene from Waynes World, where they're hangin with Alice Cooper just popped into my head: "We're not worthy..."

If I'm understanding correctly, again, you sir are doing some fine work!

 

i was gonna try this today but it requires me to install .Net Framework 4.0

that's a deal breaker for me.

 

I just saw the movie again a few days ago and that scene is fresh in the memory. Thank you for the resemblance.

.NET Framework 4.0 is quite old. Release date was 2/21/2011. It is always recommendable to install the latest version of .NET Framework because many new improvements are made, regarding stability, security, features, bug fixes, etc.

 

it always take an eternity for Windows Updates to install their fixes for .Net 4 which was the reason why i got rid of it.
and i have no programs on my machine that needs it.

i don't even know how it got installed on my Windows 7 machine in the first place.

 

New user here. Have been using WFC 3.6.0.0 for the past day and I really like it so far. I want to register but have some reservations regarding memory usage.

When I first start up WFC, memory use (working set) is as follows:

Code:

wfc.exe   51,680 K
wfcs.exe  38,052 K

This seems a little excessive to me for a front-end for Windows Firewall, but I can live with it. My concern is that after opening GUI elements, usage rises to:

Code:

wfc.exe   124,936 K
wfcs.exe  41,856 K

The problem is these numbers never go down again, they stay this high until next restart. I don't know much about WPF, but I wrote some simple programs years ago and when you unloaded a form it would free up the memory. Thus my expectation is that after I close the windows, the memory usage should go back down to similar levels as before. Can this be fixed?

In summary, 90 MB = a lot but liveable, 165 MB with no windows open = too much.

 

This is strange. In all my tests on various system configuration, wfc.exe never took more than 60MB and wfcs.exe never took more than 15MB. Usually, on my system, with all windows opened, wfc.exe takes 40-50MB and wfcs.exe 7-10MB. And this is the worst scenario. In your case, the memory consumption is very high.

Working set is not relevant because the extra memory that is used besides the private set can be easily reused by other applications anytime. The private set is important. Also, even more important is the CPU usage to be as low as possible.

This numbers does not go down because Manage Rules is singleton.
Good thing: After the first open, the window loads instantly. Synchronization with the service is done real time.
Bad thing: It is kept in memory until the program is closed.

Please post your system configuration and what OS you use. I will try to find a PC with similar specifications and I will test it in debug mode to see what is the problem.

Unfortunately, WPF uses a lot of memory. On the other side it offers a lot more regarding the user interface, DPI scaling, larger resolutions, nicer visuals, etc. There must be a cost somewhere. In the case of WPF is the memory. The old WinForms version of WFC did not use that much memory but it looked like an old Windows application.

 

Just tried WFC myself and resource usage is far too high..90mb on my system..Ive uninstalled.keep watch on its progress though...the installer is unsigned also always a put off for me.#
Regards.

 

That is indeed weird. Those numbers sound much more reasonable than what I am getting.

The numbers have since gone up a bit, and private bytes is very similar to working set. 50,552 K for wfcs.exe (~3 MB less than working) and 152,932 K for wfc.exe (~5 MB more than working).

Windows 7 x64, Intel i5-2500K, 8 GB DDR3, nVidia GeForce GTX 460 (304.79 Beta Drivers). I don't have many resident programs or services, only one of note is MS Security Essentials.

If my memory numbers are so unusually high then hopefully there is still something that can be done while using WPF to make a difference. Personally I would be happy if it looked like a Windows 95 program if it made a significant difference to the requirements, so long as it still worked the same.

 

On a Windows Vista Ultimate x64 Bit, 2.00 GHz Dual Core, 4 GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce 9300M GS (driver v301.42) machine, the max memory usage (while both windows are open) are:

wfc.exe: 46,244 K
wfcs.exe: 11,956 K​

The smaller numbers are most likely due to the smaller amount of RAM available; this is Window's way of managing available resources to ensure optimal performance.

You're the reason why Microsoft abandoned aero and made Windows Ei8ht's UI paperish

 

Hallo Alexandru,

i wrote few months ago, cause of the problem with portable programs on a crypted drive with true crypt.

I tried mounnt as removable and mount with the uuid so that the path for the fw ist the same. But nothing works very well.

Now i found out if you mount the device normal you have just to disable and enable the rule and the fw knews the new path.

For this i use a batch with the content:

netsh.exe advfirewall firewall set rule name="Rule name" new enable=no
netsh.exe advfirewall firewall set rule name="Rule name" new enable=yes

I works just fine for me since a week under Win8 RTM as well as Win7.

Maybe you could use this in your programs to make it automaticly.
If not hope the others with this problem can benefit from that.

And thank you again for this great product. Really programs as this are not much.

Have a nice day
hornet