GeSWall on Vista: Not Good!

I am making this post to inform others who might be interested in my experience with installing GeSWall in the Vista operating system. I had read in some of my research that there was not much information on this subject. I am sad to say my experience was not good.

I have a new laptop with Vista OS. I had installed Agnitum Outpost Pro, Spyware Doctor, Avira AntiVir Premium, Keyscrambler, and Haute Secure. There were no conflicts with any of this software and all was well.

I use Sandboxie on my XP desktop machine but wanted to use a more user friendly sandbox on the laptop to make it easier on my wife. After quite a bit of research and, because not much sandbox freeware is compatible with Vista, I settled on GeSWall.

I uninstalled Haute Secure because I thought there might be a conflict. As usual, after such an uninstall, I did a reboot and a registry check with CCleaner. Didn't find anything to clean out of the registry.

I set a Restore Point (A very good move!!!!) and installed GeSWall. The installation required turning off the UAC but after I did that everything seemed to go well and I rebooted the machine. That was all that went well for a while.

The desktop would load as would GeSWall and Spyware Doctor but that was it. The hard drive would keep spinning but nothing else loaded. Task Manager would not run. I could click on the Start Menu>All Programs but when clicking on GeSWall>Uninstall I received a message that Windows was not responding did I want to end the program (Windows). I shut down by pulling the battery. I tried booting up three times with the same results and decided a Safe Mode Uninstall was called for.

I started in Safe Mode. Once in Safe Mode, I got a pop-up message that my Registration (or some similar word) to GeSWall had expired followed by another popup asking me If I wanted to upgrade. After clicking no, I tried both the GeSWall Uninstall and the Windows GeSWall uninstall. Neither worked and both times I recieved a message that a component of the Windows Uninstaller was not installed.

Still in Safe Mode, I restored to the Restore Point I had set previously.

I would normally ask for assistance with a security software problem but I doubt these problems will be fixed easily so I have decided to give up on GeSWall.

Back to the drawing board.....I may have to go with Sandboxie or pay for DefenseWall....Please leave a post if you have a recommendation. I doubt I really need a sandbox on the machine but I like to fool with the stuff and I would like the maximum protection possible......Just realized DefenseWall is a HIPS and would probably conflict with the HIPS in Outpost Pro....the search goes on...

 

Never used on Vista( I have no Vista). BTW did u write to Brian?

 

I have used it in Vista32, I had no problems while running it the trial time...but when I wanted to uninstall it. I cant remember now what I did to get rid of it, but it wasn't just do a simple uninstall with add/remove in control panel.

 

I use it on 2008 Server and it runs fine. I had one bluescreen when trying to run a certain app isolated but that's it.

 

I used a Vista Premium notebook with UAC and IE in Protected mode for a month with GeSWall and i have no conflict to report.
(Strange,as i had to reinstall Vista twice in the previous month of use for the most varied of reasons and programs,but not for GeSWAll)
The 'Licence is expired' bug in SafeMode occurs in XP as well,but is no sign of malfunction. I think its a GW 'peculiarity'..i wouldnt fret for that.
Or uninstall,either.
What i would uninstall is Vista,instead!

 

I run Geswall in VIsta without problem. To uninstall, I usually add the geswall.mis to the \windows\system32 directory and from in there run Command Line in Admin Mode and run the Geswall.msi from there. Anyways, either Geswall or Sandboxie work excellent on Vista if that matters. I run Sandboxie on XP and Geswall on Vista.

dja2k

 

Sent e-mail to Brian at GentleSecurity and he responded that there was a known conflict with KeyScrambler.

I uninstalled KeyScrambler, rebooted, checked the registry with CCleaner (nothing found), and installed GeSWall. Repeated the process I described in my original post above and nothing improved. not a single difference. I will send Brian another e-mail and see what he has to say.

As a note, I am a fan of Microsoft but if I could get a free copy of XP for the laptop I would probably scrap Vista. To my knowledge,I don't need a thing that Vista does for me and its really a pain....Oh well!