Windows Firewall Control (WFC) by BiniSoft.org

Same as before, crashes before the finish button comes up. Video of installation process (and resulting crash) here.

No icon in system tray. The installation folder is missing restore.dat, the other two files are there. As per video, no buttons appeared during installation because the crash stopped the process.

Admin account.

The only services I have disabled recently are the two Homegroup ones - "HomeGroup Listener" and "HomeGroup Provider". I also have IPV6 disabled (both in Networking and in the registry) but this has not been a problem for WFC before.

The WFC category does not work, I get an error (5) saying the event viewer can't open the event log. See screenshot. Viewing the the other (Windows) categories is works fine.

Additional info: The service wfcs.exe is started and seems to be working, it's the GUI wfc.exe that is crashing. If I try and run the GUI there is a delay of a few seconds and then the same crash window as previously detailed.

 

Hi superstar515

If it concerns the program Security, we other users should know this too!

It creates no confidence (related to program) when such infos are kept secret - on the contrary!

Greetings,
SwissBIT

 

@PabUK

Are you sure that the WFC Installation Folder (for ex "c:\Program Files\Windows Firewall Control") was completely deleted?

Greetings,
SwissBIT

 

Yes, multiple times now, and I've verified that the installed files are version 4.0.1.1.

 

Alexandrud, keep getting errors in Event Log.

WFC
Error 173
Delete temporary rules failed ! System.IO.FileNotFoundException: The system cannot find the file specified. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070002) at NetFwTypeLib.INetFwRules.Item(String Name) at WindowsFirewallControl.Proxy.ProxyServer.DeleteTemporaryRules()

This cannot be by design? Temp rules work just fine.

Thanks,
Robert

 

I suppose that Windows Event Log service is started. From the exception that you receive, WCF communication between wfcs.exe and wfc.exe fails for some reason even if the call is done in a try catch. Did you install some NET Framework updates recently, maybe from Windows Update. A failed update to the NET Framework can generate this kind of problems. Please try to repair your NET Framework installation and then try again a fresh installation.

This is already fixed. The error appears at program start-up. I forgot to make a check there.

 

Windows Event Log service is set to Automatic and is started. I have however found some errors related to WFC in the Windows Application logs. I have emailed them to you.

Most recent .NET Framework updates were about 2 weeks ago. Since my last post I have used System Restore to restore to yesterday morning, which has brought back my working WFC 4.0.1.0. It doesn't seem likely there is a problem with .NET if this version still works.

 

Windows Firewall Control v.4.0.1.2 - New version

What's new:
- Fixed: Even if there is no problem, System.IO.FileNotFoundException appears in WFC log at program startup when no temporary rules are found.
- Fixed: The Installation ID is empty on machines where the first partition is hidden, making impossible to activate the program.
- Updated: New logging entries were added in the program for debugging purposes.

Installation notes: Just use the updater to update to the new files. That's all.

Download location: http://binisoft.org/download/wfc4setup.exe
SHA1: b884971f4fbbab21eec1fefab867e21cccaea3c8

Thank you for your support and your feedback,
The developer

@SwissBIT - I added more logging points in the program to record why temporary rules does not get deleted on expiration. Today I was able to find a DVD with Windows in German language. I will install this on one of my test machines and I will try to reproduce the problem. Until now, I wasn't able to reproduce it. Please check the log file after temporary rules are not deleted as they should.

@PabUK - I still can't reproduce the problem but I added new logging points to find the issue. I think the problem is something related to the impossibility to access the WFC log. You have access denied, and if the program has a problem tries to write an entry to the log. If the log can't be accessed, then the program will crash. Unfortunately, I can't log the crash of a crash. I still investigate this.

 

Alexandrud, Event Log problem solved on my laptop. Tested every temp rule and restarted OS. Everything works great!

Thanks,
Robert

 

As always no problems here.
Thanks

 

I decided to try installing the new version (4.0.1.2) after making a new system restore point - and it worked! I don't know if it's something you changed or just good luck, but either way I'm happy.

The Event Viewer still won't let me view the WFC category however. I don't know if it ever did work on my system or not because I didn't try to access it until you asked me to. Let me know if there is any other testing I can do in the future.

 

Yesterday you restored a system image with version 4.0.1.0 already installed, and the new installer 4.0.1.2 worked. The differences between 4.0.1.1 and 4.0.1.2 were only some new logging points regarding your problem. I am glad that it works now. Maybe before restoring the image, some files were corrupted.

 

Hi alexandrud et al,

Okay, so I just downloaded the latest build for my first time trying the program (first time with Win 7, too, I'm afraid), paid/donated to get the full suite of options and services, and have already hit a small snag. Specifically, my GUI looks rather different from the one in your Youtube how-to video. Most troubling for me at this early stage is that I cannot find a button for learning mode anywhere. When I open up the control panel, it looks like this:


https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2828/9408528163_b5b1421548_o.jpg

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7345/9408528065_7df184289c_o.jpg

My assumption is that things got shifted around in some udates and I just couldn't figure out the new layout from the changelogs (which I only skimmed, I confess). Can anyone help me?

Yours,

David

 

The video that you saw is from an older version. Unfortunately, the link on the website was from an older video. I have updated the website to point to the new video. This is the presentation video of version 4:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpsnf_pbGMM

Learning Mode has become the new Notifications system which does a lot more than the old Learning Mode button.

I hope this answers your question. Have a nice day.

 

Thanks so much, alexandrud. Yeah, I figured it had to be something simple like this. At least so far the program is working great and successfully blocking all sorts of unwanted "phone home" attempts by Dell, Microsoft, and Nvidia. (This is what I get for buying a pre-fabricated computer...)

I must say, $10 U.S. is a very fair deal for what your program offers.

Yours,

David

 

@alexandrud

Unfortunately, I have still the problem with "immediate" (after seconds) deleting of a temp-rule :-(

And note, we have already different settings - Broadway has de_DE environment, Gandian with en_PT-BR and I with en_DE-CH - with this problem ...

And also important, I do NOT use a german or swiss-german OS language - I have en-US as OS language. Only the locale settings are swiss-german.

And I can not change (except through a new installation of course, but I did not want to) the OS language later. This is possible only with the Professional and Ultimate version. In Home Premium, only the locale settings can be changed after the OS installation (but here I MUST leave Swiss-German).

Alexandru, which OS language have you installed? And which are your locale settings (formats)?

Kind regards,
SwissBIT

 

Hi Alexandru,

Don't know why but the video was too fuzzy/hazy to be of any use....

Can you just tell us where to find the 'Learning' button?

I have 4.0.1.2 on W7 Pro-64

Thanks,

J

 

Hi J,

I'm not alexandrud, of course, but what he explained to me is that there no longer is a learning mode button. Instead, that function has been integrated into the notifications system. Set your notifications to <high> and you'll get all the same alerts learning mode used to give you, from which you can make all your customizations. At least, that's how it has been working for me.

Yours,

David

 

Sometimes when I boot my computer, WFC doesn't create a tray icon. I have to kill the process through the task manager and restart it manually.

Has anyone else encountered this problem? I'm running 64 bit Windows 7 Pro.

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

 

Please make sure that the program is executed from only one place. It should be executed only from:

C:\Users\All Users\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\Windows Firewall Control.lnk

Check in Task Scheduler if there is any entry of WFC and delete it. Also, make sure that the file wfc.exe is not set to be executed with administrator privileges from the compatibility tab of the file.

If you have multiple NET applications that are executed at log on, then some NET assemblies can be busy and in this case, WFC will wait to initialize until these are free. Try to disable some start-up programs (NET ones) to see if there is an improvement.

 

Thanks, I think my VPN client might be the culprit here. I'll see if delaying it at startup does the trick.

 

I'm getting the same problem on windows 7 64 bit.

 

Hi..Alexander.
Ive tried the above,but cant get the icon to show without reclicking the icon in startup folder.The service is running,but theres no wfc.exe showing in task manager until i reclick the shortcut in startup folder.Its running with administrative priveleges for all users.Im not sure what programes use .net to start ,but i dont think its that as it starts straight away when i click the shortcut.Should i try just using task scheduler and see if that works and remove the startup shortcut entry?....or is there any logs i can log at to try and figure why its not starting up from startfolder .
tia
ellison

EDIT
I ve started it from task scheduler rather than startup folder and its working so far,although the tray icon is the last to load.

 

Hi Tong

I have this problem also. Here is possibly the startup of Secunia PSI the cause. We'll see if I can fix it ...

Greetings,
SwissBIT

 

For all those who have problems with the autostart feature, please check the screenshots below. That shortcut should work. If not, then there must be a problem with user permissions to the file.





Please let me know if this solves the problem.