another Windows Firewall Control?

Malware Defender just now give me one of these. I allowed the action and WFC closed out the tray icon. Any ideas?

Code:

4/20/2011 18:58:11    Send message to another process    Permitted
Process: e:\windows\system32\taskeng.exe
Target: e:\windows\system32\wfc.exe
Message: WM_COMMAND
Rule: [App]e:\windows\system32\taskeng.exe

 

So how does this app work with windows firewall? Do I have to set win firewall to block all or just the default allow everything and Windows Firewall Control will detect if a program wants an outgoing connection?

 

According to what I have read here http://vistafirewallcontrol.freeforums.org/vfc-free-vs-vfc-plus-t15.html

Windows Firewall Control blocks all system/core application, like svchost.exe.

Windows Firewall Control uses Task Scheduler to launch at system start-up, to get automatically administrative privileges when UAC is enabled. I don't know why the program dissapeared from the system tray, as you said you permitted the action. Anyway, WFC does not contain any malicious code, and it is safe to be executed and should be permitted by any antivirus program. The program was still listed in Task Manager, or only dissapeared from system tray, or it was closed ?

On Low Filtering, Windows Firewall will allow to connect all programs but without those which have a rule to be blocked. On Medium Filtering, all outgoing connections for all programs are blocked, and those programs which have defined rules to be allowed, can make connections. There are no user notifications about progeams that were blocked.

Anyway, the next version, 2.9, still working on that, will include a learning mode for Medium Filtering which will show user notifications about blocked connections.

Here is a screenshot from the next version, which will be released next week, maybe on friday, 29.04.2011.

[img=http://s4.postimage.org/qk2mcx9g/preview.jpg]

 

Me likes the GUI, simple yet elegant enough for me. I hope that the upcoming version will really be good.

 

Looks nice! I will probably try it out with the next version, when you get user notifications.

 

Yes, it was still listed in Task Manager. To get the icon back in the tray, I opened Task Scheduler and selected Run for Windows Firewall Control.

New version lookd great!

 

The new version 2.9 is out ! What's new ?

√ Learning Mode. Show user notifications for outgoing blocked connections with detailed informations about these connections, and permit the user to "Allow Always" or "Block Permanently" the programs that were blocked by Windows Firewall.
When using Learning Mode:
--- For Windows Update, DHCP Client, Network Services, and many other system related tasks to work, you must create a rule to allow "svchost.exe" to connect through Windows Firewall.
--- For network tools, like ping.exe, you must create a rule to allow "System" to connect through Windows Firewall, otherwise they won't work.
√ User can now edit the rules created by Windows Firewall Control in Management Console to Windows Firewall with Advanced Security.
√ Updated the list of rules to provide extended informations for the programs from the list.
√ Display current active network connections for the local computer.
√ At uninstallation of the program, the user has now the possibility to restore default settings of Windows Firewall, to restore the settings that the user had before installing Windows Firewall Control or to keep current settings.


Before using version 2.9 please uninstall any old version you are using from Control Panel, and please do a fresh install to get all the new features. We are sorry for any inconvenience, but the new version works differently than the old versions, and is somehow incompatible, and for some features there is a need for a fresh install.

The new version can be downloaded from:

http://binisoft.net

P.S. There are months now, since this project started, and took hundreds of hours of programming. Learning Mode is available only for Registered Users, people who have donated and supported our team to improve our software. Thank you for your support !

 

wow
amazing
may i know the differeces between the free and paid version?

 

Avira Webguard reports -http://binisoft.net/download/wfc.exe- as malware lol

 

moontan

 

Thank you for the update, mantra!

This little utility is progressing nicely, so I decided to donate and try out full version in the vm. Enabled Medium filtering with learning mode. One buggy behavior I found, it was necessary to restore the default policy because it was not letting me create some rules in learning mode, stating that the rule already exists, even though I had deleted them manually. Not a show-stopper, however

Anyway, it seems to be working properly now, although it does create, by default when selecting "Allow always" very wide open rules for applications (any protocol, any port, any ip address). These can be modified manually. Actually, this could be a terrific aid for those wanting to use the advanced firewall in Win7. I would like to see the option in learning mode to fine-tune the rule a bit before creating it, but at least it can be done afterward with, so far as I can see, no adverse affects.

Finally, I was also able to get it to run in the Standard acount using SuRun, although it is necessary to manually launch the utility via SuRun's right-click context menu "Start as administrator".

Too bad, i can't get wfc's right-click context menu to allow or block selected programs. No admin rights, so SuRun is not helping in this case.

 

Why do you have stop the task if it runs longer than 3 days selected? I also registered/donated and your sight is way too slow at the moment. I can't even download the latest version. Getting the donation in was a hassle too with Pay-Pal.

Your installer and un-installer is lacking also. Finally downloaded it. Uninstalled the old version with unhandled exception error. It removed the entry from Programs and Features but left wfc.exe behind. I think that part may be normal according to your documentation but now the new version will not install. Clicking the install button does nothing and the popup screen just sits there. Any ideas?

Another issue. Your export feature doesn't work either. It dumped a zero byte file to the desktop. Luckily I had considered this prior to using it and used Advanced Security to do it.

 

@alexandrud,

in the real system (also Win7x64 as the vm is), I get this .NET unhandled exception error as shown in the screenshot. It happens in both the admin and user account, and no matter if I select Continue, it keeps popping up, and selecting Quit causes the wfc taskbar icon to disappear. This does not happen in the vm, and the only real differences between the two systems is that in the real system I have a few services disabled. Maybe this is the cause?

 

I think this version may have been rushed a little. I can't even install it. I've rolled back to the 2.6 version for now until I hear from alexandrud as what to do.

 

This is a limitation of schtasks.exe which by default create any task with the following option selected by default "Stop the task if it runs longer than" 72 hours. schtasks.exe has no option to control this setting. Unfortunately the user must uncheck that option manually. We will try to find a workaround for this.

Sometimes PayPal is really slow, and our website just execute a simple script. Their IPN system is very slow, but is the only system for us right now.

We have just tested the file again and we traced the problem and fixed it. We recompiled the executable file again and posted the new fixed version to our website. Now the installer won't block again.

Same as above. It is now fixed. Just replace the executable file with the new one.

Thank you for your support and your suggestions. If you encounter any other problems, please do not hesitate to contact us. This means after all to support software development.

 

Thank you, are you saying it is ready for download now?

I downloaded it and got a little further. I get the start menu shortcut and the desktop shortcut. For whatever reason, it is not writing to the task scheduler. Even if it did, all it's going to do is bring up the Setup dialog again, I think. You need to distinguish/separate between your setup file and the file that is actually going to be used for running the app. My system has issues with the installer file and the app being one and the same for some reason.

 

Before using version 2.9 please uninstall any old version you are using from Control Panel, and please do a fresh install to get all the new features. We are sorry for any inconvenience, but the new version works differently than the old versions, and is somehow incompatible, and for some features there is a need for a fresh install.

This can be done by the user from Windows Firewall with Advanced Security management console, that's why from version 2.9 we have found a workaround to make the user created rules, not to be created as predefined rules. Also this feature will make the application to be to much loaded.

When the program is launched as administrator and has administrative privileges, Shell Integration works fine, and if the program has no administrative privileges, it will warn the user to elevate the program's privileges.

Please provide us more informations in order to debug this problem. The program is installing fine ? In which phase of the usage it shows unhandled exceptions ? Which services have you disabled ? Please provide us these info to try to recreate the same usage scenario and to trace the problem.

 

Still not working


The screen just stays there.

 

We have installed the latest Avira Premium Security Suite and the Antivir WebGuard did not report anything for our file. Anyway, below is a report from VirusTotal of the wfc.exe, from ten minutes ago.

~ VirusTotal Results URL Removed per Policy ~

 

The program installs fine. It's very soon after that the unhandled exception occurs. The screenshot shows all services that are disabled in my real system. The yellow highlighted ones are the only ones disabled in the vm setup.

 

same here, but only after i installed and uninstalled v2.9 first, and then tried to reinstall it because i had failed to uninstall the previous version initially (i updated to v2.9 before seeing the post about it in this thread). maybe the uninstaller failed to remove the latest version properly??

 

Actually, it is still being blocked by the webguard, with the latest updates. It's a false positive, of course, but it is being blocked.

"The requested URL was identified as a potentially harmful website.

Category/categories: Malware"

 

...

 

I see you as well, Greg

 

Your install cmd script is not working right for some reason.