DavidR,
this registry change just instructed aswrdr.sys to load as late as possible. The motivation here is to load AFTER any firewall (Comodo) drivers. TDI filters in this case load one upon the other, so the last one which loads is on top. When application make a network call (like connect() ) aswrdr would be the first to process the request. (on the other hand, when data are received from the network - it would be the last to see them, but as aswrdr does not care for data it does not matter here).
Being on top, the first to see the call, aswrdr.sys has the chance to spot the correct calling process (Windows Mail and Internet Mail Scanner in this case) before Comodo makes its processing, which is necesarry to prevent the looping. This is also the how it is implemented in WinXP and lower, but it is at the same time against Microsoft recommendation for TDI drivers on Vista - they have even phoned us to implement it the other way. So, I don't know if it should be made the default or not - more testing is probably needed. We have another driver (network shield) loaded which adheres to the MS recommendations and as I understand that this should be enough to initiate TDI network stack in the correct way.
Let's see how it will behave
and what will Vlk's opinion be on the possible change.
L.