LnSSvc Beta: Start Look 'n' Stop through a service.

Hi All,

LnSSvc is a Win2000/XP service to start Look 'n' Stop before the login screen, in order to have active filtering before to log in.

The package is available here:
http://looknstop.soft4ever.com/Beta/LnSSvc/LnSSvc 1.01b1.zip

Unzip the files in a folder (the Look 'n' Stop one or another one) and follow the instructions from the ReadMe.txt file.

This is a beta version.
All comments welcome here.

Thanks,

Frederic

 

Hello Frederic,

Great idea!

Do you know, if "LnSSvc" does interfere with PhantOms two little registry hacks that allow "fast loading" of LnS?? Is it basically the same tweak?

Right now I have activated both of PhantOms fast loading tweaks. So should I first deactivate these before installing your "LnSSvc"

Thanks,
Thomas

 

Hey Thomas M

Assuming everything works this is what was needed for very long time for Win2K/XP systems. The use of my Start-up Tweaker for Look 'n' Stop should not be necessary anymore and shouldn’t be used from this point forth.

Regards,

 

Hi PhantOm,

good to see you here !!!! And thanks for the fast response!

Now I just need to find your convenient zips containing the uninstall files for your tweaks... It should be somewhere on my backup CD So, if I don't relocate these files anymore, would you mind if I PM you, so you can send it to me ?

Thanks a lot,
Thomas

 

nice, Frederic!

@ who was using Phant0m's rules:
is it enough to delete the userinit.bat in \system32
or we just empty it without deleting?
(I did all manually without the vbs files)
thank you!

 

So, here is my report from testing the "LnSSvc" service on my Win2k-SP4 system.

First I deinstalled PhantOm's start-up tweaks (I deinstalled both! Is that OK, PhantOm ) Then I rebooted, everything was OK at that time.

Then I installed the new "LnSSvc" as user Administrator, did everything that was mentioned in the readme.txt and rebooted after the installation.

LnS loaded as usual. My TCActive shows LnS started relatively fast and before explorer.exe

See here:

http://www.neurop.rub.de/~mittmann/temp/lns005.png ).

When I closed user Administrator and switched to my user profile, LnS did also load OK. But it shows some strange gray colors instead of the normal blue, this was not visible before

See here:
http://www.neurop.rub.de/~mittmann/temp/lns006.png )

Furthermore, I had to give access to "lookandstop.exe" one more time, also "explorer.exe" asks for permission to start other internet apps. This is new on my system, since it was not required before the installation of LnSSvc.

Any other reports ?

Thomas

 

Is there no one else testing Frederic's new tool

I observe one freezing of my Win2k about every 2 days. It is too early to say that it is related to "LnSSvc". Right now I suspect it could have to do with a conflict between "LnSSvc" and my AV software, since Sophos tries updating every 2 hours (and it also wants to be one of the first running processes.)

Well, I need to do more testing... it would be helful to hear from other people how "LnSSvc" is running on their system

Thanks,
Thomas

 

I have just dowloaded it yesteday, and so far so good

I have noticed that indeed it was now needed to allow explorer.exe to launch other internet capable apps, noticed too the weird color in tabs only if i am not
on the default blue windows XP theme.

Apart of that all works fine for now, but I have only one account I use, didn't try to close my session to go into another one.

Look'n'Stop now starts very early, and when I logg on, I am able to see in the log viewer what has been blocked while i was on the login screen.

regards,

gkweb.

 

Hi gkweb,
Thanks for your message

Just one minor issue: In the LnS log window scrolling of the mouse wheel does not move down the entries of the logs anymore. The only thing that works in the presence of "LnSSvc" is using the scroll bar on the right. This is not dramatic, but I was used to it and now it feels a little inconvenient!

Thomas

 

Hi Thomas,

Thanks for your testing.

About the colors, I observe the same behavior here. This is because Look 'n' Stop is started with the default Windows colors, since no user is logged yet.
After a user log on, the user color theme is applied but some notification handling should be missing in Look 'n' Stop to reflect that.

A long time ago, there was already a similar issue when the user changed the windows color with Look 'n' Stop active. I thought to have added the all the notification messages about color changing, but it seems not.

Since Look 'n' Stop is started earlier, the lnsfw1 is enabled sooner and it is normal that new application like explorer.exe are now detected.

About the mouse scroll I didn't see that yet. It is possible that some Windows services and tool (coming with MFC) are not yet initialized when Look 'n' Stop is started so soon.

Regards,

Frederic

 

Just to make things clear:
The "LnSSvc" service does NOT cause any freezings on my system I did some more testing and all of my recent problems were related to another software

Frederic,
It seems that the unzipped file "LnSSvc.exe" is used by the system all the time. Since I didn't know, I just put the files to a non-optimal temporary subdirectory. But now I can not delete/move the file "LnSSvc.exe" anymore (since Windows tells me that it is currently in use.) From this it might be helpful to mention in the readme.txt file that the files should be unzipped to an appropriate subdirectory, for example one that is located in the LnS directory

Thomas

 

Hi Thomas,

Ok I will update the readme.txt file.
The initial post suggested to unzip the file in the Look 'n' Stop directory but it was not so directing.

If you want to move the file now, you need to uninstall the service first (LnSSvc -u), and reinstall it (from another location).

Frederic

 

Hi all!

I'm a 2-day-old user of LnS, but I can see that this FW has Grrrreat potential! I'll test out the svc beta mod and report my findings here. This is a relatively new install of LnS, so there shouldn't be _too_ many interferences.

Err. Well, first attempt went smoothly. I rebooted, and the service started up with no apparent problems. I took a screenshot of the service window, and I realised that the service referenced my desktop (where I unzipped the archive.) I uninstalled, and moved everything over to my lns folder, and all is well.

 

I tried the new service start. Per instructions, I unzipped the package in a subfolder in the zipnlook folder, unchecked the start with system box and checked the none box, and checked the common to all users box in the registry key section. Then I restarted my computer. Upon restart, I wound up with two copies of Looknstop running. The second copy had all my normal application and rule sets. The first one which loaded had none of them. The first one looked like I had just installed Looknstop and had made no changes to any default settings and provided no rules for any applications, e.g., it had the standard rule set whereas my original one which was also running had the extended rule set.

Hope this helps in developing the feature.

P.S. My OS is Win XP Home

 

Thanks for the testing.
Actually I don't think this problem is related to the service itself.

It looks like the change of the Look 'n' Stop options before rebooting didn't apply correctly.
Are you sure you press the Apply button just after changing the starting mode and the registry selection ?

My suggestion:
- quit both instances
- restart one instance of Look 'n' Stop
- in the options, select "common to all users" if it is not already set.
- in the options, if the starting mode is different from None, select None and press Apply,
- in the options, if the starting mode is already on None, select another choice, Press Apply, re-select None and re-press Apply (this is to be sure other info in the registry are removed, and they are removed only when changing the option to None)
- Quit/Restart Look 'n' Stop to verify the options are now Ok

Frederic

 

I tried your suggestion and it worked too well. Now LnS will not start up using the service. I've uninstalled it and gone back to using the system startup option in the program.

Before I uninstalled the service, I tried to start the service manually and got the following error message:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: Service Control Manager
Event Category: None
Event ID: 7024
Date: 6/6/2004
Time: 10:43:33 AM
User: N/A
Computer: HSGLAPTOP
Description:
The Look 'n' Stop Service service terminated with service-specific error 1 (0x1).

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

Hope this helps in your development of the feature.

Thanks.

 

Hi,

This error means that the service didn't found the Look 'n' Stop executable and so it wasn't able to start it.

To retrieve the path of the Look 'n' Stop executable, the service uses the following registry key\value:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Look 'n' Stop 2.05]\UninstallString

Could you verify you have such a registry value and the Uninstallstring data is correct ?

Thanks,

Frederic

 

If someone has a copy of Phantom's uninstaller, pls email it to me and i will put it on my server for all others who might need it

Activate soon disable
http://mickeytheman.com/lnstweaks/ActivatedSoonDisable.zip


Startup disable:
http://mickeytheman.com/lnstweaks/Start-up_Tweak-R.zip

 

Attached, I hope this is it. Remove ".txt" at the end.

 

testing under win2k...
no issues to report other than the default color vs. user options color

thks 4 this service start option

 

I've followed the directions while installing the service and everything worked until I rebooted my pc. Normal BIOS, pre login XP logo, login, post login music and then no OS. It seems to hang. I went into Safe Mode and removed the service and went back to system startup and everything was OK. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

I was just wondering whether there were any updates to the b1..so, Frederic?

 

I could be mistaking but I can see Look ‘n’ Stop users running into future problems while using LnSSvc. Many Registry Cleaners and Uninstall wizards has common problem, validating properly.

 

Not difficult to fix though,

----
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Look 'n' Stop 2.05]
"DisplayName"="Look 'n' Stop 2.05"
"UninstallString"="\"C:\\Program Files\\Soft4Ever\\looknstop\\looknstop.exe\" -uninst"
----

Now she'll be properly validated by any RegCleaner or Uninstall Wizard

 

Thats assuming Look 'n' Stop is installed at the following location, the Installer should be fixed up here