Network discovery and other oddities

Regarding the firewall:

It seems that regardless of what type of 'zone' you set for yourself, ESS disables network discovery and the network discovery responder policies. This disables Vista's network mapping and I think might interfere with some printer sharing issues. To re-enable you have to go into the group policy editor.

On automatic mode you won't be able to synch your PDA using the Microsoft Sync Center. You have to set it to interactive and then allow the program. Otherwise if you put your PDA on your cradle, you'll get nothing.

If you create rules in interactive mode and then go back to automatic mode the program ignores the rules you made. You have to stay in interactive mode for any of these rules to be enforced.

I loved NOD32, but the firewall looks not quite ready for prime time in my opinion. Hopefully these are minor issues that can be sorted soon.

 

It's must be easy to make an intuitive firewall if you know what you're doing. Symantec FW is crap, but it sets itself up 100% and new programs need 1 click to integrate. Outpost FW is crap, but it sets itself up 99% and new programs need 1 click to integrate. ESET FW is lucky to set itself up 70% and integration could suck golf balls up a garden hose. Comodo has the worst first run setup I know about, but ESET isn't far behind. ESET had a great AV with V2 but V3 and the ESS need a LOT of work. V3 has some of the firewall components BTW.