Author Topic: Avast Free 7.0 and Windows 7 Firewall  (Read 12298 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Akumasama

  • Guest
Avast Free 7.0 and Windows 7 Firewall
« on: March 13, 2012, 02:45:53 PM »
Since this morning I'm having some issues with Avast and Windows 7 Professional 64bit Firewall.
It was working until this morning, I deactivated it manually to test a few things, and after a couple of reboots I've been unable to reactivate it again.

Reading around in google it seems everyone suggests that such a behaviour happens when you have other internet security/firewalls installed on your PC.
The only thing I can think of that could have firewall-like functionalities is Avast Free 7.0

Anybody mind giving me a hand trying to understand what's happening?

Offline CraigB

  • Avast Überevangelist
  • Serious Graphoman
  • *****
  • Posts: 11239
  • No support PM's thanks
Re: Avast Free 7.0 and Windows 7 Firewall
« Reply #1 on: March 13, 2012, 03:14:36 PM »
Avast free doesn't have a firewall, so the question is what were you testing when you disabled it? have you tried restoring the defaults for the windows firewall, you can also go to services and make sure that the firewall is set to automatic.

Akumasama

  • Guest
Re: Avast Free 7.0 and Windows 7 Firewall
« Reply #2 on: March 13, 2012, 03:25:12 PM »
To be honest until I got suggested to come here and ask, I never considered Avast to be a possible issue because the FREE version never had a firewall. Was just wondering if maybe something similar got implemented in newer versions and that's why I came here :)

Yes I tried re-enabling Windows Firewall automatically from the Control Center but it says it's unable to and asks me to do it manually.
When I try to do it manually the PC appearently reads my command, thinks a bit about it, but then nothing happens :P
Already checked in services and it is set to automatic, but it just doesn't start.

Anyway, we're off-topic here, this isn't a Windows general helping board and it wasn't my intention to take advantage of the wise people who lurks in here.
I just wanted to make sure Avast 7.0 has no form of incompatibility with Windows 7 Firewall and that, just like I always thought, it has absolutely no influence on the issue I'm experiencing on Windows 7 Firewall since this morning.

Thanks! :)

Offline CraigB

  • Avast Überevangelist
  • Serious Graphoman
  • *****
  • Posts: 11239
  • No support PM's thanks
Re: Avast Free 7.0 and Windows 7 Firewall
« Reply #3 on: March 13, 2012, 03:32:15 PM »
No worries, maybe try running sfc /scannow or just go back to an earlyer restore point or system image preferably.

Offline wonderwrench

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 223
Re: Avast Free 7.0 and Windows 7 Firewall
« Reply #4 on: March 13, 2012, 04:28:41 PM »
Take a look in services and see if the Base Filtering Engine is running. If not that is whats causing the firewall not to start. I have seen this on 2 PC's in the last two weeks. Both W7 64 bit and both were running Avast, one Free and one IS. When searching for the cause of this problem on the net it seems this problem is common. Looks like many cases are rootkit related. I found no malware on either PC. I'm thinking a recent windows update caused this problem but it could be Avast blocking or delaying the Base Filtering Engine. It took some registry changes to work around the problem on one PC. On the other I just imaged back to a known good point in time. So far both are working fine. Just now I tried to find the article I used to repair the one PC but its like looking for a needle in a hay stack.

Good luck
Bill
Main Box*i7 930*GB X58A-UD3R*3x4 gig Patriot DDR3 1600 EL*EVGA GTX 460 1 gig*Intel X25-M G2 80 gig*WD 2TB Green*ASUS DRW-24B3LT*Samsung SH-S223L*LG WH14NS40*Corsair AX750*Rosewill Challenger case*Windows 8 Pro 64 bit*Avast 8 Free 8.0.1482*MBAM Pro*Firefox 19.0.1*NoScript

Akumasama

  • Guest
Re: Avast Free 7.0 and Windows 7 Firewall
« Reply #5 on: March 13, 2012, 06:02:22 PM »
Hey wonderwrench, thanks for the insight.
Didn't look thoroughfully, but read a bunch here and there on the net and found that the problem is more common than I was thinking.
Found in general these big causes:

1) Another Firewall/Internetsecurity-like software is installed and running
2) Another Firewall/Internetsecurity-like software WAS installed
3) Random generic/unexplainable cause

Most common are 1, obviously, and 2, since appearently a lot of those software leave "traces".
I also found several possible solution to solve these issues:
  • Microsoft Fix It, they released a specific lil' tool for these issues
  • "Repair  WMI & Windows Firewall" by PcWinTech.com - another lil tool
  • Complete Internet Repair v1.2 by Rizonesoft, another interesting and complete tool for issues like these
  • A bat file suggested by a Microsoft Official helper on answers.microsoft.com (it's just a series of instruction you stick into a bat file and then run it)
  • Open CMD, go to windows\system32\config\TxR and then take off hidden and system attributes from files there, delete certain ones, then reboot. (this is especially effective for problems of type 2 of the previous list)

Goes without saying, none of the above worked for me sadly. I think I checked BSE already and it was running, the Windows Firewall Service instead is set on autorun but it's stopped, and when I try to relaunch it of course I get an error. Went to System Event to check the error in detail but there was nothing I could get out of it.

Since appearently the system is refusing to restore configuration from this morning or older, I guess there must be something "bigger" underneath this all. As strange as it may seem, because this morning everything was working 100% appearently, until I went and absolutely had to turn the firewall off manually. I really had to do it, rite?
Guess tomorrow I'll just try to reinstall Windows 7 from scratch using the lolAcer CD and tweak everything again.
I had just finished a few days ago sigh...  (this is a fresh PC, started using it around 1 week ago)


Thanks for all the support guys though! And sorry for the OT.
Hope the little programs I liked above may serve someone else in the future having similar troubles and using the forum search function :)
Some of those programs are reall neat, try them! Sad they didn't work for me, but they look nice ^^

Offline CraigB

  • Avast Überevangelist
  • Serious Graphoman
  • *****
  • Posts: 11239
  • No support PM's thanks
Re: Avast Free 7.0 and Windows 7 Firewall
« Reply #6 on: March 13, 2012, 06:09:52 PM »
Cant you restore back to an earlyer point? if you just reinstalled the system a few days ago then you would have run all the windows updates which should have created numerus restore points.

Akumasama

  • Guest
Re: Avast Free 7.0 and Windows 7 Firewall
« Reply #7 on: March 13, 2012, 07:50:15 PM »
I had several restore points, 3 from today and many more from the previous week.
After today's 3 there was one from march the 6th and another one from march the 2nd, and then many more all on the same two days.
Tried today's oldest and the 6th one, none worked, got an error after the reboot saying it couldn't apply the system configuration.
This is very strange if you ask me, but I'm not really competent with this because in all honesty I never in my life had to use the Windows system configuration restoral thing before, so I have no clue wether or not such a thing is common or suspicious.

I could have tried the 2nd of march one, but it seemed a bit too old to me, said it affected like 99% of the software I installed and configured (which isn't much tbh, Office 2010, adobe stuff, Chrome, Avast, WinRar and that's it I think, maybe a couple more).
If I have to go through such a mess to reinstall/reconfigure all that software, I might as well reinstall the SO completely.
It annoys me because I had just finished to import settings, the pst file for Outlook, my documents etc. Sigh, but hey, can't be helped.

Think I'll try with a clean Windows 7 Professional 64bit install, instead of using the Acer custom built-in one. Should work, I think, and that way I won't have to uninstall 90% of the Acer crap like I had to the first time.


Anyway, I doubt all of this is because of a virus/malware. Did an Avast and a Windows Defender full system scan and they didn't find not even something suspicious. Of course that's not enough, I should look for rootkits or something else with more specific software like CCleaner, BlackIce etc etc, but in all honesty the PC is so fresh and I can't think of any dangerous action that could have happened in these few days. Also, I'm behind a very well protected network with 2 physical firewalls, a proxy and whatnot.
I mean, not saying it's impossible I got infected, I just think that it's very unlikely.

sandeep108

  • Guest
Re: Avast Free 7.0 and Windows 7 Firewall
« Reply #8 on: March 15, 2012, 08:02:51 AM »
I am having exactly the same problem (and also that of my wireless KB/mouse lagging/stuttering a bit) after installing v7. I have avast Pro, which again is not supposed to have any firewall at all. At times the Windows firewall simply will not start and also not allow any network connections. No matter what I do with control panel and firewall settings, nothing works. A reboot usually resolves this and then there is no problem for the rest of the day.

I do not think re-installing Windows is the answer, you will simply waste time. There is definitely some issue with v7. I am going to try the trouble shooting option  "Load avast service only after other services" to see if it goes away. The thing is that it is a very random occurrence for me, it has happened about 4 times in past couple of weeks, with as I said, a reboot resolving it.