Windows Firewall Control (WFC) by BiniSoft.org

Windows Firewall Control v.4.5.4.2

What's new:
- Fixed: Duplicate notifications appear for rules defined for custom locations due to incorrect detection of the current location in WFC service.
- Fixed: ManagementEventWatcher used in WFC service can't be properly disposed and can lead to a memory leak if the WFC service is started/stopped multiple times during the same Windows session.
- Fixed: The system tray icon does not resize correctly when 125% or 150% dpi scaling is used.
- Fixed: 'Reset sorting' for columns which use value converters does not work in Manage Rules.

Download location: http://binisoft.org/download/wfc4setup.exe
SHA1: 8afcc613ed1447fa9ab945553cee4d01381c85d1

Have a great weekend,
Alexandru

Thank you for your feedback. If I missed something, please remind me and I will fix/implement it.

 

I am having something similar to this problem... WFC is constantly, almost immediately, reverting to High Filtering after setting it to Medium Filtering or Low Filtering.

This only started today, after reboot. No MS OS updates or other activity going on.

Have WFC on our latest three fresh installs of Win 7 Pro, all have the option set to default start WFC in High Filtering on reboot. The other two have no issue.

Any tips on how to resolve, short of uninstalling and reinstalling WFC?

 

After spending a couple hours reading through posts here and other googled sources, I gave up and posted the above.

Still tried a variety of things after the post, and was about to uninstall WFC then reinstall, but tried one last thing before...success!

How... Turned off the auto High Filter on reboot option. Right clicked on WFC icon in system tray, and clicked EXIT. Then in Windows Explorer, navigated to the WFC folder and double-clicked on the wfc.exe file to restart WFC.

Strange how a reboot wouldn't start it over and rid the problem, but shutting the app down manually, then starting it up again brought it to it's senses. After turning the default to High Filtering on reboot option, I tried rebooting again, and confirmed it is back to normal.

Logged my recovery steps here, hopefully saving the next schmuck some significant time.

 

[Feature Request]

Optionally (configurable) "Delete with confirmation" in Rule Manager (for compatibility with Original Windows Firewall).

Have a nice rest of weekend, ALL!

 

@alexandrud

I keep getting WFC Stopped Working (AppCrash) in Windows reliability monitor.

I have WFC mem dumps.

Can I submit them so you can take a look ?

Thanks,

HJLBX

 

Memory dumps don't help. Please uninstall and reinstall the latest version. You can choose to keep the existing rules. Also, send me the logs explained here: http://www.binisoft.org/faq2.php#troubleshooting

 

@alexandrud

Requested Event Logs being sent to support@binisoft.org

Thanks,

HJLBX

 

Is there a way to compare two Full policy files?
I need to track if M$ pushes updates through WU which potentially make changes in WF rules. And by managing Full policy files backups I thing I can accomplish that.

 

Not the Full "policy*.wfw" - but can load a Full Policy and mark (select) all rules and export those to a PARTIAL file (*.wpw), then make the same with other Full Policy. After you can compare the files (cleartext).

Edit: little typo ...

 

Thank you so much Alpengreis, it worked.
Having second thoughts it would be a nice new feature to add to WFC: the ability to compare and spot changes among Full policy.wfw files without the use of a txt editor.
lol

 

Hello Guys,

Can a few people check Windows Reliability Monitor to check if Windows Firewall Control service shows as AppCrash ?

On my system it just started within the past few days... could be Windows update, could be something else...

Thanks,

HJLBX

 

I have a few recent entries. The service appears to restart OK though.

 

I believe I've been encountering a bug which I've seen a number of times over the past couple years --

When deleting (some) rules, the delete operation doesn't actually work. When I re-search for the rules, they're still there. Sometimes I'm able to work around this by not multi-selecting the rules to delete -- there's usually one that seems to be the source of the issue, so I have to delete them individually, which works sometimes.

I'm currently encountering this while trying to delete Steam rules (reinstalling Steam fresh). Any idea what the cause of this is? Can it be fixed?

EDIT: I just noticed something -- when trying to delete one of these "bugged" rules (if that's what they are), the most recent temporary rule that I've set (a completely unrelated program) gets removed, instantly causing a notification pop-up.

It's almost as if, after trying to delete a "bugged" Steam rule, when it doesn't delete and instead dims the rules panel slightly and then goes back to the main rules view -- it's almost like it's "crashing" WFC, causing it to revert the rule list, or at least clear temporary rules.

If someone can guide me on debugging this, I can provide further information in order to get to the bottom of it.

 

Great idea! I'm going to do the same. Microsoft is like a new animal all of a sudden with Windows 10's release and their new mindset of "Open your mouth so we can cram any secret update-'vegetables' down your throat that we desire". I feel I now have to do background research on every new update that's available, as Microsoft seems too eager to push more and more "telemetry" madness into W7 as the W10 floodgates have opened.

Cool, thanks!

Agreed! This would be a very nice, helpful feature, even if it's just a simple "Diff" function between sets. Rows could be colored according to whether they've been added or subtracted.

 

@alexandrud

At least one other person reports wfcs.exe crash report in Windows Reliability Monitor. Appears to me it started right after the most recent version release...

 

*.wfw is a file format used by Windows Firewall which can't be viewed/compared in a text tool like Notepad++. The only solution is the one already explained by Alpengreis. The comparing feature between two full policies will not be done in WFC. There are professional tools for comparing multiple files, so we will not reinvent the wheel in WFC.

1. Because I do not use Steam please send me your full policy and indicate which are the rules which generate these problems. It may be possible that Steam recreates the rules, so it is possible that they are deleted but recreated immediately.
2. Temporary rules are removed when WFC is restarted or when they expire. However, if the delete generates a crash in the application this will make a reconnect (restart) from wfc.exe to wfcs.exe. At this point, temporary rules are removed automatically because the scenario represents a new connection from wfc.exe (GUI) to wfcs.exe (Windows service).
3. Have you checked the WFC log in Event Viewer ? Any rule update/add/delete that fails should be logged there.

This is still under observation. Do you receive these entries for each day or do they appear randomly ? I have some entries in my Reliability Monitor, but because this is the development machine they don't mean anything as I crash the program very often while testing. On another machines I do not see these entries for wfcs.exe.

 

@alexandrud
Hi, is there a reason i am getting no response on my problem? I still habe the issue that incoming connections are NOT logged in WFC. Still, there are in the Windows event log. Additionally the outgoing blocked connections are displayed in the incoming WFC log. Please see my attached screenshots above.
Info: latest version off cause, clean uninstall, reinstall. Problem persists.

 

Does not happen here so I can't provide a solution for something that I can't reproduce. Does anyone else have this problem ?
The entries are retrieved from Security event log.
1. Have you checked the WFC log ? Do you see there any error ?
2. This problem appears only regarding the Direction combo box ?
3. If you close the view with inbound direction, next time when you open it do you see inbound connections or still outbound connections ?
4. These settings (combo boxes values) are saved in Windows Registry. Do you use any security software that may prevent WFC from saving it's settings in Windows Registry ?

 

@alexandrud most of this is wfcs.exe AppCrash... (10) times starting 14/9/15... not yet today, but it will...

 

regarding
1) yes, i have one warning repeating: event id 205, Message: Parsing an input message failed
2) no, WFC shows fine the blocked outgoing connections. But wenn i select Direction inbound the same results are displayed, just outbound.
3) still only the outbound blocked connections.
4) no, i don't use such software. Just Windows Defender. What is strange, i can't find WFC in registry, except under the EventLog Service.
Thank you

 

You have really no
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\BiniSoft.org\Windows Firewall Control
?

 

I have a question about making rules...
Lets say I have an outbound rule for one application, ... is there any way to implement a selection for "No Service" instead of "Any" Service... or does such a setting belong in another application?

 

[Bug (v4.5.4.2)] Incorrect Program-Path Validation

The REAL EXIST path for this example is ...

C:\program files\idm computer solutions\ultraedit\uedit64.exe
resp.
C:\programme\idm computer solutions\ultraedit\uedit64.exe

Both are valid in WFC and this is good so.

The problem is: also such a path is valid ...

C:\program files \idm computer solutions\ultraedit\uedit64.exe
or
C:\programme \idm computer solutions\ultraedit\uedit64.exe

And this is not correct.

So, there is a validation bug with blank space(s) - at least before a "\" (backslash).

Thank you in advance!
Alpengreis

 

Can you reproduce this on another machine or in a virtual machine ? I think this is a special situation (incompatibility) on this machine. Have you tried to clear the log ? The same problem occurs again ?

UPDATED - The service property has a meaning especially for svchost.exe (or other Microsoft related applications) rules. For other rules (3rd party applications) Any means nothing. Don't worry about this. Microsoft Windows services are not aware of external applications created by 3rd party vendors.

Thank you for spotting this. I will fix it.

 

This info is not correct. Also other programs can use services, as here (for example):



These are NOT user created rules!

Alpengreis