SpywareGuard crashed my computer

Please excuse my anger, but yesterday I installed SpywareGuard for the first time. It sounded like a very good program, stable, and should really help out working in the backgroud.

Before installing, my computer (XP, 2Ghz) has been running in top shape. I had a few problems caused by other programs, but deleted those and spent the next week recovering the damage they caused. NOW, my computer has been running great for 2 weeks now.

Before installing SpywareGuard (2.0), I read every readme I could. Unfortunately, none came with the software, but read the comments at the bottom of the web page. Made sure to close every bit of software in my lower right corner. The install itself went smoothly. Executed the program itself, and took a look around. Nice. Then I rebooted.

This is where all my problems started...

During the boot when all the applications are getting excecuted, my computer freezes for a bit, my desktop resets, my taskbar resets, desktop resets again, taskbar resets again. Faults started popping up. See attachment.

Well, after hours of frustration, rebooting, and using MSconfig to find out what's causing all of this, I was able to trace it down to: "ctfmon" What's going on?

Now, I havent' been booting ctfmon temporarly, but now other things are working correctly.
1. SpywareGuard doesn't startup automatically on boot. (selected to boot in MSconfig)
2. SurfinGuard Pro doesn't startup automatically on boot. (would boot before, and selected to boot in MSconfig)
3. McAfee VirusScan doesn't load when doubleclicking the icon or after selecting "Launch Virus Scan". The "V" shield does show up in the taskbar though.

What happened? What did your program do to my computer?

I don't see any Readme file with the program.
Nothing to tell me about known bugs, known issues, things to watch out for, details about the program. Nothing.

As an FYI, because I've had so many troubles before and I don't want to have problems again, I went beyond the typical closeing currently running programs, and ran a check with Spybot and VirusChecker before the install. Both came up clean.

Coming over to this forum today, I see you have v2.1. The first response that I'm expecting to see is, "Try installing v2.1. It fixes some bugs with v2.0". I absolutely will not install 2.1. I see the comments "fixes some bugs", but yet again,

- No documentation stating what bugs fixed.
- No documentation stating what changes were made between revisions.
- No documentation on known issues.
- No documentation. Period. Only documentation is marketing/sales/feature on the download page.

I understand this is free, but I also donate too, as I have with Spybot, which didn't damage my computer on boot or damage other software in the process.

XP
2Ghz
380M Ram
10+ gig HD space.

I appoligize again if this has come across as too strong, but please understand my frustration. I don't exactly enjoy killing my weekends with damage recovery. Please show me that free software can be quality software and SpywareGuard is in the top tier of spyware protection software like I first thought.

Looking forward to your reply,
LeeD

 

Today I used WinXP's Restore feature and restored everything to the way it was before the install. Everything is now working just the way it was before.

I would still like to know why I had so may issues.

Thank you for your time,
LeeD

 

Re:SpywareGuard crashed me computer

After reading a little bit about SurfinGuard Pro at http://www.finjan.com/products/surfinguard.cfm, it sounds like it might be a conflict with SurfinGuard Pro. It looks like they do the same TYPE of job but you'll have to wait for Javacool because he's the one who wrote the program.

 

I believe Amerk_5 figured out the problem here.

It does seem like, based on the functionality of SurfinGuard Pro, there could be a conflict between it and SpywareGuard.

I'll have to load SurfinGuard on a test PC to see if this is the case, but it sounds likely.

Does anyone use SurfinGuard Pro and SpywareGuard together without any problems?

I'm very sorry you encountered these problems - it does sound like a conflict between SpywareGuard and SurfinGuard Pro. SpywareGuard 2.1 would not fix this issue, so I'd recommend you do not install it for now. But I should add something: SpywareGuard's protection would have been enabled as soon as you installed it. Thus, I'm not sure why the problems did not occur until a reboot. Again, I will try to look into this.

Any new program will undoubtably encounter some issues on the many different system configurations out there. I tested SpywareGuard personally on multiple versions of Windows with many major programs installed, plus a dedicated team of beta testers took it through the loops. But obviously there will be some things to sort out. I don't have a list of "known issues" yet, because I honestly didn't know of any. But I'll put a potential warning out about possible issues with SpywareGuard + SurfinGuard Pro soon.

EDIT: That error message isn't something SpywareGuard would display itself. And since SpywareGuard didn't start at bootup, I'm not quite sure what happened now that I look at it. Also, "ctfmon" is not associated with SpywareGuard in any way.

Best regards,

-Javacool

 

Please see this page for some interesting information about SurfinGuard problems:

http://www.finjan.com/support/faq_view.cfm?faq_id=65

Best regards,

-Javacool

 

Thank's for the responses.

I also got the impression that there was a conflict with SurfinGuard too. Especially since there is a autohide menu with it. What got me was I had disable that menu weeks ago. I double cheched that and confirmed, yes, it was disabled...

Although, after I disabled "ctfmon", both SurfinGuard and SpywareGuard seemed to work in harmeny when I would load them after a boot. (they wouldn't load during boot anymore after the crash, even though they were enabled in msconfig. please reference my orig email) Let me also add that my Spybot program also started having troubles when loading. Frequently getting "can't find log" errors.

Doing some of my own checking, I learned that "ctfmon" has to do with language selections in XP. I have set my computer up so that my wife (Taiwanese) can type in chinese when she needs too, and I can easily revert back to English. I've posted my settings below. It can be found in Start/Settings/Control Panel/Regional Language Options/Languages/Details/

Doing some more searching on this forums, I found that other people with Japanese computers had issues too, but I never got the faults they were getting, but I do think this is related to some degree.

As an FYI, I have SurfinGuard Pro 5.7 Build 281 and never had any conflicts with that and my v7.0 McAfee Virus Scan. I'm also not running any of the other potential conflicts with it.

Please let me know what you think.

Thanks again for the responses.
Best Regards,
LeeD

 

I think it's ironic when "security" software ends up leading to more trouble and damage than any malware the user has ever come across. Maybe "less is more" applies here.

Just my opinion.

 

Hi,

It's been a few days now, and I haven't gotten a reply on what in SpywareGuard caused my problems.

I don't mean to intrude, if you are still trying to figure it out, or are already working on a solutions. I was just curious of your thoughts, and/or status.

Best Regards,
LeeD

 

Hello?

 

Hello LeeD
When we first obtained SG we had a problem although a lesser one. Our solution was a couple of missing Windows dll's. We would like to recommend a program to you and you can use it to find missing dll's and other inconsistancies. It is called COM Explorer found here: http://www.4dev.com/com/index.htm
This is one very useful tool. If there is a problem you will find a listing in the left colum in RED.

Let us know how you make out.

 

Have you tried removing SurfinGuard, and then seeing if SpywareGuard would work correctly on your system? This could be done after creating a complete backup, so that things could be restored exactly as they were before.

Sometimes, software simply cannot get along. I tend to think that SurfinGuard, rather than SpywareGuard, crashed your computer.

FWIW, I tried COM Explorer awhile back, and it detected some components as misregistered, even when they were just fine.

 

Hey LeeD - Do a search here using the word Chinese , okay?

("Search for" Chinese and use "Any poster" from the drop-down menu). Pete

 

Thanks Spy1,

Looks like some new information has popped up. I've already done a search before but didn't come up with much,

Doing some more searching on this forums, I found that other people with Japanese computers had issues too, but I never got the faults they were getting, but I do think this is related to some degree.

The key difference between these, and my situation is that I don't have a non-english version of XP. I'm American born, first language is english, and puchased my computer a few months ago at the local Best Buy over here in California. My wife on the other hand is Taiwaneese, and prefers to type in Chinese sometimes. This is why I changed the settings in the picture I pasted above.


Nameless,
Thanks for the suggestion to remove SurfinGuard to see if SpywareGuard will work fine, but I don't have the stomach to go through the same mess I went through before. If SpywareGuard is not compatible with SurfinGuard, then the software developer needs to got through the pains of finding this out and let me know. I may sound like an a$hole, but I have neither the time nor the patience to do the developers dirty work.

If I'm in Pheonix, and I buy a car in Pheonix, I'm expecting the car to work in high temperatures, and the car manufacturer to have run the car through high temp tests. As I've said before, I understand that this is free, but I'm also willing (and have done in the past) to pay/donate for quality free products.

Javacool, after doing the search, I learned that you are trying to fix the Chinese XP thing. Thanks. I didn't see your posts here, so I assumed that it wasn't being worked on.

 

I completely understand. I will work with SurfinGuard to see if a solution is possible, but given how many other programs have problems/conflicts with SurfinGuard, it may not be likely.

That said, should I discover that a solution is possible, you can be sure that I will implement it and let you know.

For now, I highly recommend that users with SurfinGuard installed do not use SpywareGuard. (SpywareBlaster shouldn't cause any issues at all.)

Obviously it is taking a little longer than I'd like, since I don't have access to any Chinese/Japanese language versions of Windows. But I am working on it.

Best regards,

-Javacool

 

Javacool, you win the "diplomatic guy of the century" award. Lee is lucky I'm not the dev here.

 

Javacool, Thanks. Your effort and persistance is greatly appriciated. I won't bother you from your work much more. Looking forward to the fix.

nameless, I think Javacool is lucky that your not the dev here.

 

Hilarious. I don't quite get it, but hilarious nonetheless.