To DCS, Can you help?

Thanks for the link, you probably saved me 30 minutes.

 

Ok well I had no issues at all with installing NIS2004 with ProcessGuard v3 .

This was installed on Windows XP SP2. Here are my steps :-

ProcessGuard was already installed, I turned on learning mode and installed NIS2004. Rebooted once, NIS started in a disabled state, I am not sure if this is by default or not. I then setup the firewall part, enabled it and turned on all Global Protection Options in ProcessGuard, turned off learning mode and rebooted.

After reboot there were no alerts at all, and everything was working "fine". I rebooted once more and again everything was working fine, no alerts. I then took the screenshot.

Some points I noticed :-
a) The system is about 2-3 times slower with NIS2004 on the system compared to when it was off. The hard drive light is flashing constantly and memory usage has gone up 80MB. Even disabling the Anti Virus part has no perceived effect. System boot time went from 38 seconds to 1 minute and 55 seconds. The system I tested it on has 1.5GB of Ram and is a P4 2.8GHz with HT enabled.
b) There is *A LOT* of executables and DLL files installed with NIS2004. Enabling Learning mode during the install and first reboot seems to have picked up all the important executables however.

 

nick s,

I took a look at the gif, I see a file called nmain.exe in the list. It appears to be in c:\program files. I just took a look in my in c:\program files & didn't see it in any of the Norton or Symantec folders. Could you let me know where exactly that exe is in your system. It's getting late here so I'm going to go but I'll run another check for it when offline.

I'll check back tomorrow.

Thanks very much for the help!

 

Jason,

Thanks for giving it a try, with the help of nick s I may have found the problem.

If it doesn't work I'll uninstall NIS & install as you did.

As far as NIS at boot up I don't notice any long wait, but maybe I'm just used to it. In the Task manager under the Performance tab I have close to 300mb of memory left out of 512, 34 processes running.

 

nmain.exe:

 

nick s,

found it. I'll try an uninstall of NIS & try installing PG3 first.

Thanks again

 

No problem. Glad it helped

No problem. Glad I could help

Thanks,

Chris

 

Thanks everyone for your input.
This is an interesting thread and hopefully we can reach a reasonable connclusion in an objective manner.

So are there anymore NIS2004 users out there that are successfully running it with ProcessGuard 3 or others that are having problems with NIS2004?

Your input would be very welcome.

Pilli

 

Good Day to all!

I know I'm going to sound like Benny Hill, when he said "I used to be indecisive but now I'm not so sure."

But after saying last night that I would uninstall NIS today & install PG3 first, since it worked for Jason, I took a look at the image he posted when something caught my eye. At the bottom of the image he posted, the version # of PG3 except for 3. was blotted out which told me he was hiding something for a reason, I suspected that a new version was already being worked on, I guess many years on the Police force helps.

Anyway, I read another post that has been submitted since I went offline last night & sure enough, Jason mentioned a new version will be out.

So I'll wait for the new ver, what's the point of installing PG if 3.0 will soon be outdated. I'm not 100% sure if the new version could be safely installed over 3.0 & I'm not going to waste more hours just to have to repeat it again very soon. On my dial-up the updates on a new installation of NIS since it's first release are a bit over 20mb which would take close to 2 hours. No thanks, no way, no how! I would rather take a fancy to a goat first, on second thought no, I'll just wait for the next version.

Jason my good man! Why didn't you advise me to to wait for ver 3.? to come out?
Dang it, if it wasn't that you & I went to different schools together I would have to slap some sense into you.


If I didn't know you better I would say you enjoy your job. lol

 

Hi Free@Last,

I imaged the setup from yesterday and will archive it for a while. I continued to play with it (including a simultaneous Full System Scan and Windows Update). No problems. Note that I installed NIS2004 first, then PG3. Hopefully, the next version will solve your problems.

Nick

 

Hi nick s,

I don't know how many times I've thanked people in the last couple of days here, but thanks a lot!

It's strange how I made sure before installing PG3 the second time that all programs running in the sys tray were set to not load & rebooted, only the volume icon was in the sys tray when I installed PG. After installation & the first reboot that PG needs it was in Learning Mode, I then set up NIS, Trojan Guard & Spysweeper to load at boot, then opened all programs on the desktop, in the programs menu etc & did a reboot. After that I expected that some configuring would be needed but this is when the problems with NIS started.

When you installed PG did you already configure NIS? How many accounts did you have if you did, because I noticed somewhere in the beta posts that someone was having trouble with NIS set up with multiple accounts.

What was running in the sys tray when you installed PG?

In the main tab in PG did you have all Global's checked?

What did you have checked in the Tab that you can set what each program can do & can't?

And one last thing, I don't know how many caught it back in one of my earlier post (I know they were long) but I can't understand what was going on after I set things up as I just explained & after a few reboots PG's sys tray icon's behaviour became erratic, one boot it would be locked blue, another reboot it would be back in learning mode as soon as the boot ended and I was back at the desktop. It was all random without me touching the program.
I would love to figure out exactly what was causing it.

 

I configured NIS before installing PG. NIS picked up the standard Administrator and ASP.NET Machine accounts, as well as myself. I did not set up any limited user accounts.

Norton Firewall and NAV (protection enabled).

After the second reboot in Learning Mode, I enabled all Global Protection Options and rebooted again.

I made no changes to the Protected List settings after exiting Learning Mode (check out my screenshot in Post #25).

In general, I always install PG with my autostarting security apps active and let Learning Mode do its job and sort out how the security apps interact with each other, with XP, and with PG.

Nick

 

Thanks for the info nick s,

I'll have some references to go by when 3.xx is available.

Have a good day!

 

There is quite a few fixes relating to EXECUTION PROTECTION in the next version, but nothing that is different to help "fix" whatever issue you had with NIS2004. Since at least 3 of us now have all installed NIS2004 and had no issues I will put it down to some system specific issues on your system Free@Last, which at least means you can possibly fix it and allow both NIS2004 and PG to run.

With the next version you can backup both pguard.dat and pghash.dat and basically use them straight away with the next version if you choose. I will list the instructions on how to do this simple thing with the release.

 

Hi Peter2150,

I know there are some of you that really dislike NIS or all Symantec's products, but it's always saved me from attacks, virus infections, spam is no longer a problem, so I'm willing to live with it's extra dll's, use of more memory, many users today are running systems with 1 to 1.5 GBs of ram so what's the big deal when online? I have 512 ram on this system which is the only system I have at home that I allow to connect to the net, my other systems are high end. I use this pc for downloading, research, email, news & a few other minor things. It doesn't contain any important Docs, Spreadsheets, or any other personal info that would be of much use to anyone. I suppose some bookmarks, a few emails that don't reveal anything personal, nobody else has physical access to it, what it would reveal to a hacker would most likely put them to sleep. To put it another way, with perfect backups made of clean installs of XP Pro SP2 it would take me roughly 30 minutes to be back up & running.

I bought the PG as part of the package deal DSC had a year ago or so, my main interest in the purchase was TDS-3. I've found Port Explorer to be very helpful & have learned many things by using it. PG also is a great product, & I will get it working very soon, the chances that it's something that can't be fixed are small. I'm just waiting for the new version, then I'll use the advice you, Jason, & all the other kind folks here have givin me.

Do I want this pc secure from online attacks, hackers, trojans, worms, virus, spam, yes. I have a good anti-virus, Anti-Trojan scanner, Wormguard, anti-spam protection, several anti-spyware tools, updated host file, I don't go to the type of sites know to cause problems, I don't download programs that I use except from the company that made it and only after checking the companies track record, before installing programs I scan & rescan. My browser is set up as secure as I can make it based on research I've done around the net. I don't open attachments, my email is scanned before I touch it, I don't use file transfer programs or chat programs, I don't enter my real name, address or any personal info on any website unless I know the owners of the site are well know & trusted by folks such as yourself & other regulars at sites like this one. I subscribe to a few mailing lists that go to an internet based email account not my personal email addy, I watch for any signs of abnormal traffic in or out of this system & if I suspect anything I disconnect from the net & redial which helps, I don't leave the pc connected to the net when I don' t want to be online. I could go on.

Most of us know the dangers that lurk while connected online, banking online is an area I wouldn't touch, that scares the heck out me thinking of banking online.
I don't even give info offline to those call centers which always seem to call at dinner time. I tell them to take me off their list, I rarely get those types of calls anymore. I try to irritate them to the point they hang up. One trick I use is when they call I say, excuse me, but I'm busy, could you give me your home phone # & I'll call you back? The responses I've recieved from that are too funny.

Anyway Peter2150, I do respect your views & can appriciate your dedication to your system, but well all have different needs, perhaps your system contains info etc that's crucial to your life, mine doesn't. And if you look at the programs I do use for online security & the way I practice safer surfing, what's the worst thing that could happen to me givin all the above info?

I've seen over the past 16 years how insecue every version of Microsoft's OS's are as well as IBM's, Linux has many problems, apache, novel, I can't remember one secure OS of any kind. I used dos online to connect to college years ago & 95, 98, XP home & pro on the net when it became more than just text, all of them full of severe issues, in that time I've had two viruses, one trojan, no personal info stolen, spam use to be a problem but the last few years it's been down to a max of 4 per month.

The strange thing is that even though we both want secure systems, we both know that there are so many holes in our OS, a few known, many many not to the general public & many never will be, the programs we use contain who knows how many issues, no matter what you or I do, there is NO secure system, it's only as secure as it's weakest link of which in our case there are countless. We're just really kidding ourselves, but denial sometimes is easier than facing the facts. Your system may be a bit more secure than mine but can you prove it so that the top security experts in the world agree? If you have an always on connection then your more at risk than I am for instance.

Like I said, I'll get PG up & running, it's most likely just a quirk in my system that I'll fix with the help of generous folks such as yourself, Jason, nick s, & the many others who have gone to great lengths to help me. Your great people & deserve praise for the help & time you give to strangers.

I'm just waiting for the next release of PG. No point setting it up to test it when it's soon to be no longer used. Even though the issues fixed in the next version of PG aren't made to fix my specific issue, I'll wait for it. I reallly do suspect it's just a minor problem, but in the case that it can't be made to work on my system, I won't miss any sleep over it as these things happen to the best of us.

So Diamond CS, I'll wait for the new version, if it is something with my system that can't be fixed, your still my first choice with TDS, Wormguard & Port Explorer.

 

Jason,

I agree with you, it's most likely something that can be worked out. If not don't worry about it.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Thanks

 

Thanks Peter, that's another thing I did before the second install. Someone mentioned it, I also uninstalled TDS-3's protection, Script Sentry's, & all anti-spyware programs protections. After the install, first reboot, I turned protection back on in Wormguard, TDS-3, Trojanhunter, Script Sentry, TDS-3, and the rest of them.

After I get this problem fixed, I'll owe you folks a drink.

Thanks Peter