Privatefirewall freezes Win7x64.SP1 after the needed reboot

Windows 10 is beta. Why people use it for their primary systems is beyond me.

 

@CHEFKOCH - Will get back to you with info on what eventmgr + PerfMon say after the freeze, but first let me quote one of the sources you link/refer to:

'Day 29 July with my new Win10 PrivateFW was not working but now it is! Privacyware does not change the exe file so probably something changed on O.S. with last massive update'. What else can I say other than the fact that it's not PFW's fault but as I said earlier ... MS are not the brightest ppl out there. In that regard, let me also quote Greg, the developer, 'MS has made it increasingly difficult for third party vendors to maintain ndis driver based firewalls on Windows, so don’t be surprised when some Win 10 update “removes” your “incompatible” Privatefirewall software and you have to re-install….(it’s happened to me)'. Greg is indeed helping out Win10 users as he is helping me out. Prompt to reply over the email. I would not consider this a dead product. It's just a simple and functional one. And that's what I like about it. No need to use fancy bloatware. Here ... again from your links ... 'greg the developer of this firewall is fantastic.I was having issues installing it and he would give me directions via email..top notch support and how many developers would contact you on such a personal level..real shame if he cant keep it going.'

Again, I'll say it ... Greg is prompt to respond and PFW works on Win10 and currently he's helping me out finalize troubleshooting the issue I'm having with PDF and Win10. Once I'm through with that I'm pretty sure it'll be obvious that PFW works on Win10. Others users have also successfully installed PFW on Win10, so ... Shall I quote again one of my prev. posts ... 'firewalls are a bit different than typical programs; they are prone to causes conflicts on a case-by-case basis'. And that only makes sense. We install all kind of whatnot on our pcs ... firewalls, antivirus apps, u name it.

Thanks for your comment! I think you might/should be able to get it to work if you try my tip mentioned earlier with the compatibility tweak. Pls give it a try and report back. Greg Salvato, the developer, would appreciate your feedback on that.
PS - amazing that you missed MS's best OS so far ... 7, that is.

Sorry but I don't see how it is in Beta ... it's pretty much a stable release now.

 

Microsoft has released a new update Build 14267 of Windows 10 to public which comes with many bug fixes and improvements. This is the 6th Insider Preview build of Windows 10 released after the November Update build 10586 (Threshold 2). This new build also comes via new "RS1" (RedStone1) development branch.

This build doesn't contain big noticeable changes or exclusive features. It is basically focused on bug fixes and general improvements.
http://www.askvg.com/new-update-build-of-windows-10-technical-preview-now-available-for-download/

I wouldn't call it "Final".

 

Software and OS is never final, it's constantly improving process. Just saying and now back to topic please.

 

Currently I use 8.0 Windows platform and 8.1 (x64)

I know I tried compatibility mode once or twice but it didn't help. When I have some time i'll try it again. I don't miss 7, why? Because everyone and their brother got real busy after Windows 8 release and made all sorts of Windows 7 programs 100% compatible with that OS.

 

Win10 issue with freeze after wake-up from Sleep and Hibernate is solved. Simple, yet beautiful, solution. Prolly one that would have solved my Win7 post-reboot problems as well.

So, I started out with these 3 assumptions:
1. Run installer as Admin (eventually toggle training mode on and off). 2. Run installer normal (eventually toggle training mode on and off). 3. Try after installing it, but before the needed reboot, to set the main *exe to run in Win8 (or lower) compatibility mode.
However nice they were, neither one of the 3 was really needed. All that was needed was to just wait for the post-sleep or post-hibernation freeze to happen (not to force reboot at that moment, as I did several times, cos that then causes the freeze to happen again and again) and then simply to be patient for 5-6 minutes for the freeze to be over. (For the record, my notebook PC is sorta speedy. Has the Samsung 850Pro SSD. Guess on a slower machine it might need even more time). After those 5-6 min my system was released and back to normal. That had to happen only 1 time and from then on, no problems at all. This is sorta similar to what I was telling you after reboot over at win7. Sometimes after reboot PFW would freeze my system for a minute or so. Now it stopped doing that. It’s as if it was scanning or indexing something. So it sorta also did that now post-sleep and post-hibernate.

It’s possible that all solutions I've found so far would not make any difference as regards this post-sleep/hib issue in Win10 and the post-reboot freeze in Win7. I just had to be patient for PFW to do its thing (in Win7) after the mandatory post-install reboot and (in Win10) after the very first wake-up from Sleep/Hib. A bit annoying and UNEXPECTED when u r on an blazing fast SSD but still. I have no idea what PFW is doing in those sorta one-off initial hangs/freezes … is it indexing or scanning sth, don’t know, but for the most part it seems that it does it only one time and from then on it knows how to behave post-reboot, post-sleep and post-hibernation.

So, who was saying PFW is NOT compatible with Win10? I beg to differ, pls!

 

Feedback from eventmgr + PerfMon will have to be cancelled for now. @CHEFKOCH and everyone else who tried to help - thank you so much!

 

I'm glad your found a solution yourself, this might help others.

 

Well ... I hope it does! Now PFW works both on Win10 and Win7 ... when I started out with it, it worked neither on 10 nor on 7. Both the compatibility trick and the having-patience trick, LOL, are ones to keep!

 

A friend of mine, who is a very experienced and astute user, shared with me that he too has experienced the same problem as I have and his solution was the same. That is, the freezes and hangs are simply cos PFW needs to index and scan some stuff at first. Be patient, wait for the freeze to release your system and that's it. It's a one-time thing. From then on, PFW only scans/indexes newly installed stuff. And that makes sense. On a freshly installed OS there isn't as much for PFW to index so the freezes/hangs either don't happen or take much less time (and that is exactly what my friend noticed). And on a system with loads of 3rd party programs and things there's a lot for PFW to index and I suppose those one-off freezes/hangs of 5-10 min are normal.

Best of luck to all of you! Hope this has helped or will help someone out there!

 

Just tried (for the last time BTW) to install PFW 7.0 and this little bugger still refuses (just like always on Win 8 x64). I assume their filter driver is signed? but you see my screenshots the message that I always used to get. Nothings changed. It just isn't compatible with some systems and this is one of them.

http://s9.postimg.org/55523ax3j/pfw.jpg

After the reboot then this message (Again)

http://s11.postimg.org/v3xpf0nw3/image.jpg

 

Well ok ... clearly a problem with the Ndis driver. Greg Salvato, from the PFW team, could help you out over the email, as he did with me. What I'd guess is that if you properly clean up your system, and by that I mean PROPERLY, the install might succeed. Try uninstalling any antivirus, malware, HIPS, f/w or whatever software you have first. Try with this https://singularlabs.com/uninstallers/security-software/ and then try to uninstall with something like YourUninstaller, which not only uninstalls (using the default uninstaller) but also cleans up registry left-overs by the program you're uninstalling. Once you've done that see if you get the problem again. I'm pretty sure that it's possible to install pfw on your machine, because the dude who recommended me pfw has installed it successfully hundreds of times without issues (or at least without persistent ones). The issues I've experienced, described throughout this thread are simple caused by some scanning and indexing [on the part of PFW] which had to happen only a single time. But what I would recommend you is to try this - make a separate partition on your drive and install win8 on it just so that it is a fresh install of the OS, not your current one. Alternatively do it as a virtual machine. Once you've done that, and haven't installed anything else, go ahead and see if you still CAN'T install PFW. That ought to answer some question for you.

Up to u if u wanna bother. I bothered and in return I got PFW to work flawlessly on Win7 and Win10.

PS - If I may quote a friend:
Read this http://dottech.org/100803/windows-best-free-firewall-program-review/#bestfree ..
And here's one of the most trusted firewall test results:
http://www.matousec.com/projects/pro...ge/results.php
There may be "better rated" firewalls, but they are bloatware central.

 

That's Way Too Much to do just to get a simple install done. The only installed Real-Time security program is NVT-ERP and that's easy to just turn off while installing anything (besides it has an Install Mode).

I find it strange to say the least that this issue has dragged on as long as it has on ver.7 and no one else is barked about it, but then not many look to that program anymore anyway I guess.

I'm not about to reinstall windows again for it

 

its not about reinstalling windows just for it. it's about properly removing your a/v app and cleaning your registry and once u do that you'll prolly end up like me - ABLE to install pfw. but oh well ... up to you. you miss out on a great firewall. i find all other firewall+hips apps to be simply bloatwared ...

 

NVT-ERP is useless against Locky Malware, because it not execute any external .exe, just set UAC to max and disable Windows ScriptHosting and then you not need just another tool.

 

Never mind. It's OK. FWIW I already just installed FRESH windows 8.1 to this rig (only days ago) and it's always the same old song and dance with PFW. What they should do (if they even care) is what most every other vendor does that puts up a notice their products work on A,B, and C system OS's and that is "FIX" issues before they billboard their stuff on their website.

 

You say your OS is fresh, but did you install NVT-ERP prior to installing PFW? If that's what you did then no wonder you're having issues installing PFW.

 

Crap. Sorry that you just don't understand. For the umpteenth time I have gone thru this same scenario MANY times over, especially before NVT-ERP was ever on my systems at all. I come up on this same issue with PFW every single time even without any installed security apps.

PFW ever since ver. 7 simply fails miserably to even install and it's all because of that filter driver that they use (I guess).

Those screenshots show exactly the error received and it's never changed. Maybe, just maybe, if they ever spend time to update it ONCE, it might finally work but at this point no sleep is ever going to be lost waiting on that from them.

 

Maybe, JUST MAYBE, if you change your attitude towards ppl trying to help you (and clearly wasting their time doing so) you might one day come to the point where you will successfully overcome a stumbling block such as the one you have with PFW. This thread was not started to discuss PFW dev's financial situation and the development of their product. It's on pause now and that's it. Money means a lot in this business and as long as there are ppl who buy fancy bloatware **** just cos they know nothing, then it's likely that good products like PFW will continue failing financially and thus will cause problems such as the one in your case. You're now left with a choice of FW+hips product, which is clearly less good. Really sorry to hear that you can't make PFW work on your system. I actually wanted to help you, but you miserably failed to see that. Best of luck!

 

Thanks for any efforts that you thought might be helpful and sorry you take things so personal but this PFW app is really not worth any fuss.

The fact that PFW's development is ON PAUSE speaks volumes so I do appreciate you relaying that bit of info which better explains matters on this one.

 

Ain't taking anything personal. PFW not really worth any fuss LOL ... I'd strongly dispute that ... it's the ONLY fw/hips app that is worth ANYTHING. EVERYTHING ELSE IS SIMPLY BLOATWARE. PFW is simple and effective. Simple and effective things do 1 thing - they work and they do what you tell them without any further complications.

 

As to 'ON PAUSE' ... that's just my guess and opinion. I have no firm data for such a statement, that's why it's only a guess. Also because many have been complaining that pfw is dead. If it's dead I don't see why and how it's working perfectly on both of my win7 and win10, but anyway ...

 

From my experience with Private Firewall at first fresh install it will go into training, and/or it should be set on training the first few hours.

The problem is that, at least on my PC, the network settings would behave strange after around 2 months of usage.Some rules would start to ignore destination ports or destination IP-s, if used/specified, for some unknown reason.Never understood why would do this as at fresh new installs was behaving just ok ,reloading rules does not help.
If you don t care about such granularity then it behaves good enough.

There is also a need to check recheck/tick some general app network rules when you run new software, PC games for example.If there are rules set per each application in the app network rules manually, sometimes there is a need to enable those rule (tick the checkboxes) in the general sections as well, otherwise the firewall would just block those apps.

To bad there was no newer version released, it is quite a decent piece of software in spite of some bugs or small design issues.

 

Totally agree! It's the only firewall that's bloatware free and works well.

 

Recently helped a pal use PFW again. His last stint with PFW was in the XP days. In his Win 7 x64 partition he uninstalled the AV (which was EAM) and then installed PFW. Created rules from scratch. Afterwards re-installed EAM again. There were no freezes and it seemed to be smooth. Pop-ups were at the minimum because of the rules created. One thing that I noticed is that there were no firewall logs.

We checked the 'Advanced Reports' but it shows the last part which is "Process Detected for - Last 1 Hour / Last 1 Day / LAst 1 Week. All the rest of the "tabs" are blank as well. pfsvc.exe and PFGUI.exe are running when checked with Process hacker>"Find Handles/DLLs". Settings are:

Firewall ON-Filter Traffic
Internet Security is set to "High"
Network Security "High"
Process Monitor "Medium"
Firewall Log --from Medium set to "High"

He posted a thread in another forum (not a member here so I posted in his behalf).
Thread is xttps://malwaretips.com/threads/pfw-no-firewall-logs.57303/

Strange behavior....what may be the reason why the firewall logs shows blank..?