another Windows Firewall Control?

I will think about this. I have to use a different approach to include again this feature because like it was until now, it created some limitations and a lot of code was used to avoid the limitation.

I will try to mess up one of my computers looking to recreate your scenario. Right now, I can't reproduce this problem, and without a debugger I can't do much to fix this. The log file doesn't help because the program crashes before logging the error, and the exception that appear to you doesn't say too much.

Regarding the first problem, I will try to find a solution. The user.config file is generated per file based on the hash of the file. If a new version is used, a new user.config file is created. I will try to find a workaround.

Regarding the second problem, indeed, on slow connections, the download is not finished when the message is displayed. I will fix this too.

Thank you for your feedback.

 

The only reason why I think it was requested in the first place was not to make WFC too bloated, but if it adds too many lines of code just too implement this, this would also make it bloated.

Thanks for thinking about it, but it's not a too great of a loss if you can't implement it anymore and thus keep WFC lean and mean

 

Another tiny feature request:
Protection of Windows Firewall Service and Base Filtering Engine to termination.

 

And you call that a tiny request

 

And again not able to duplicate the issue.

Computer architectures, drivers, video, programs ... are totally different. Though Windows is again set up on E:.

Whatever .NET installs with Win7, 3.5 I suppose? Then I had to install 4.0 for WFC. Otherwise a very bare system. Except for whatever Win7 installed, no other drivers or anything installed at all.

Tried setting Performance settings to "max performance" (more typical to how I run, rather then with all that GUI crap), but that made no difference either.

 

The logging feature looks fantastic!

Now that it is finally here I'd like to submit again a request: some options on right click to quickly customize the rules created from the log. Something like "allow SomeApp.exe", "allow SomeApp.exe on port xx", "allow SomeApp.exe on port xx for the ip xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx" and maybe some more.

Just for suggestion, here's a screenshot of a similar feature available in Windows 7 Firewall Control.

http://www.sphinx-soft.com/Vista/pict/blocked.jpg

Thank you!

 

Only admin users can stop a Windows service. Preventing a service from being stopped is not a good idea. If the two Windows services should not be stopped, I think Microsoft would have implemented this. Also, preventing an admin user from killing your application is a bad idea and very frustrating for the user. This is the reason why the user can stop wfc.exe and wfcs.exe anytime. I could have made them unstoppable, but this is a very bad approach. There is one solution for this: use a standard user account and leave the UAC enabled. This is a pretty good protection.

This kind of context menu is very bloated and useless. From the Recently Blocked view, the user can create a general allow/block rule and then he can customize it from the Manage Rules. I don't want to create a big context menu. I will add a new entry that can create a new rule and open the properties for it automatically. I think this is better than having 10 menu items for pretty much the same functionality.

 

how to allow shared folders?

I have a bunch of shared folders on my computer that I need to allow access across my local network. How would I do that?

I have my Windows Firewall Control set to "Medium Filtering".

Thanks! Everything works great except this part.

 

Re: how to allow shared folders?

Question, have you enabled the option in WFC [Options - "Disable the Ability].." if so then uncheck the box and try the sharing again, windows will make the appropriate rules in the Windows Firewall.

Which OS are you using ? If Win7 also check Control Panel - Network and Sharing Center - Change Advanced Sharing Settings if Network Discovery is turned on and if File and Printer sharing is turned on.

 

Re: how to allow shared folders?

Awesome! Thank you, your suggestions worked.

I unchecked "Disable the ability..." Then went into advanced settings and turned off then back on "Network Discovery" and "File and Printer sharing". Resulting all the appropriate entries were automatically added to the firewall.

 

Had to edit out a couple of system rules created using version 3.9.0.1 (windows update and windows time service) as well as disable akamai rule to allow windows to update.

 

Indeed, there is a problem with the default rules in the version 3.9.0.1. The last version where they were good was version 3.8.2.2. The remote port for the Windows Update rule is set to 123 instead of none and the service is set on the block rules even if the service should not be set. I will fix this. Thank you for reporting this.

 

Just for reference, you'll get an Windows Update error 80072efd when you try to update.

 

Sorry for the late reply, been busy last week.

Alright, so finally got the time and I tried all the suggestions; restarted my firewall policy to the default, uninstalled WFC then installed the current latest (3.9.0.1). Now my ancient desktop is on the same page as everyone else; getting the 80072efd when trying to check for Windows Updates.

I tried setting the remote ports of both the "WFC - Windows Update" and "WFC - Windows Time Service" to "All Ports", that didn't fix it. It appears the IP too needs to be changed, cause I'm pretty sure Microsoft doesn't use "Host Gator" for their websites What should thier IP addresses be set to? Thanks in advance.

BTW: Setting the profile to "Low Filtering" allowed me to perform the update check but setting it to "Medium Filtering" and "High Notifications" didn't display any alerts

 

The recommended rules from version 3.9.0.1 are broken. Please remove them. For Windows Update, the rule must be for all remote ports, on TCP protocol on all remote addresses and the service set to Windows Update. This is already fixed and a new fixed version will be available later today or tommorow. Thank you for your understanding.

 

Awesome, looking forward to the update

BTW, just a suggestion, mind making the Quick Rule formatting an option for the user? As-in right now, the formatting for quick rules is "<Executable Name> (<Executable Title>)". What I want to do is to have it as "<Executable Title> (<Executable Name>)"; this helps in organizing programs that have multiple random name executables with Titles that all start with a common Title (the program's main Title).

This is usually the case for most programs, they have an executable for the program and a program update excecutable; both the titles would read something like "Program" and "Program Update". When sorted in WFC by name, both "Program" and "Program Update" appear next to each other and are easier to find as I (the user) usually know the Title (instead of the executable's name) of the programs I install.

 

Very good suggestion. It is already changed and it looks better this way. Thank you. The new version is coming very shortly.

 

Version 3.9.0.2 available.

What's fixed:
- Fixed: User settings are not persisted if the user uses the updater to update to a new version: Manage Rules position, columns order and visibility, etc.
- Fixed: The recommended rules from the previous version prevented Windows Update to check for new updates.
- Fixed: When the user checks for updates, the download complete message appears before finishing the download and if the user tries to execute the file, it is still incomplete.
- Fixed: The result dialog after creating a new rule from the Control Panel is displayed randomly on the screen instead of the Control Panel window.
- Improved: When creating a new rule, the file name is displayed in front of the name from the assembly. They were switched for a better readability.

Installation Notes
Because the previous version had some troubles with the default rules and because from this version the user settings are stored in Windows Registry instead of the user.xml in the AppData folder, a fresh installation is highly recommended.

In order to preserve your existing rules please do the following steps:
1. Delete any WFC - *** rules from Manage Rules.
2. Uninstall your current version and choose to keep the current settings.
3. Install the new version and choose to install the recommended rules.
4. That's it.

Also, the translation files from the website are all now up to date and compatible with version 3.9.0.x of WFC.

Download location: http://binisoft.org/download/wfc.exe
MD5: d84c7493a8ee241f44f20a37cbc9ad41

Thank you for your support and for your patience. I'm doing my best to improve and provide the best tool to control the native Windows Firewall.

The developer

P.S.: Do you remember the first versions from 2010 ? This is how the first version looked like.

 

Installed after uninstall as suggested.

The Notifications setting was changed to "Disabled".
I prefer to have this set to "Medium".
This has happened twice now, that I know of, I wasn't always checking.

(W7-64 Pro SP1)

 

This is normal when uninstalling. The updater preserves settings. The tip was for saving the rules. The slider can be set easily but creating tens of rules requires more time.

 

Updated and all is well from what I can tell... Great POS (piece of software)!

 

Few more suggestions:

1. WFC system tray icon function:

Current behavior:

- Single click = Show Control Panel
- Right click = Show menu

Can you please add:

- Another single click = Hide Control Panel
- Double click = Show Manage Rules
- Another double click = Hide Manage Rules (and/or) Hide when minimized (option) for the Manage Rules window.

Additionally, when setting a hotkey like for example Ctrl-Shift-X to open WFC Control Panel, the same hotkey should close it as well if it was already open, same goes for the Manage Rules.

2. Manage Rules search function:

A. When searching, the window should auto scroll to the result/rule, and the ability to hit something like F3 like many programs to scroll to the next result. It currently just highlights, and I end up having to scroll all the-sometimes-too-long-rules-list to find the highlighted ones, not quite intuitive.

Or

B. When searching display only the matching rules results and hide other rules, just like Windows built-in search function when searching for files.

Thanks.

 

Updated to the latest version and so far so good

Really minor (no big deal) suggestion, I've decided to replace my Laptop with a Surface Pro and this device has a high resolution. Due to this, the WFC icon in the notification area looks blurry; mind making a high resolution notification area icon? The profile icons in the main window all appear smooth and can be easily downsized.

BTW, I keep getting notifications from the explorer.exe process trying to connect to the internet; any suggestions on the best rule to create for this executable?

---Update---

Just noticed a bug with the new ability to remember the visible columns set by a user in the Manage Rules window. I hid the "Local Ports", "Remote Ports", "Remote Address" and "Services" columns. Then I closed the manage rules window and reopened it just to find that all the columns have re-appeared.

 

I will add that if you try to open an already opened window, from the context menu or from the global hotkeys, the current behavior is to focus and bring to front the windows that are already opened. If I change the current behavior, if the Manage Rules window is minimized and you want to open it again, you will actually close it with the proposed behavior. This is not good.

There are 4 ways to close any WFC window: by pressing on the Esc key on the active window, by pressing the middle mouse button on any WFC window, by using the classic Alt+F4 or by using the close button.

Sorry, but the current behavior will not change.

I will try to optimize this. I will try to display only the results.

WFC contains two icon sets. One at 16x16 and one at 32x32. The small ones are used for the default 96 DPI. They look good from 1024x768 up to 1920x1980 resolutions. If the user has a larger DPI, then the 32x32 icon set is used. And they look good on the same resolutions range. What resolution do you use ?

I usually block all connections for explorer.exe. I don't know why this exe file tries to connect to the Internet.

This is a small bug. It is already fixed. Try to move the undesired columns to the end of the list to avoid seeing them. The columns order work.

 

It's currently set to 1920x1080 and this is how it appears:

Seems to have something with to do with the new Windows Smartscreen; blocked it and kept getting a message that Windows can't connect to Smart Screen, allowed it and no more connection problem messages.

Awesome, looking forward to the update