Zone Alarm ver 4.5.x.x to 5.0.x.x upgrade problems

[RoyKelly]

We have a small network with a cable modem, router, two Win XP Pro computers and one GNOPPIX computer. The two XP computers are running AVG(free) ver 6.0.692 and Zone Alarm (purchased) ver 4.5.594.000.

My wife upgraded her ZA Wednesday, and that is why I am posting here. I know a lot of people read these forums, and I want to get the word out.

Her machine rebooted after the install, then would log into the desktop and log off. This happened in the Safe Mode as well. Safe Mode Command Prompt would not go to the command prompt. Instead it showed a logon screen, logged in and immediately logged back off. We tried the Recovery Console and found that even though we deleted everything in the Zone Alarm folder in the Program Files folder, nothing changed.

I spent five hours that night working on her machine and trying to find answers and found a lot of other users on the Zone lab Forums http://forum.zonelabs.org/zonelabs/board?board.id=inst having problems as well.

My wife spent close to two hours on the phone with ZoneLabs (retail) tech support, then another three hours on with Microsoft tech support. The final answer from both is wipe and reload.

We tried a repair first, but the Repair did not work!!! We were able to FINALLY get into a previous installation and are in the process of manually removing all of version 5.0.590.015, then rebooting to see if it works.

After fixing computers and writing code all day, I like to relax and play with my computer. When you add up the time I spent working on her computer, my cost (at $30/hr) is over $300 (more than 10 of my hours attempting to resolve). There are better ways for Zone Labs to have done this.

Operating System: Windows XP Pro
Product Name: ZoneAlarm Pro
Software Version: 4.5
Message Edited by RoyKelly on 05-27-2004 11:07 PM

PS: I have sent it to Zone Labs Technical support.

Message Edited by RoyKelly on 05-27-2004 11:09 PM

PPS: Microsoft support also knows about this issue. After 17 phone calls to MS Tech support and getting people in India who kept telling her to log into Windows and go to this or that article in the Knowledge base, she finally got a supervisor in Dallas, TX. He checked out the forums here and was surprised. He is going to research and attempt to duplicate her issue (as well as many of yours). If he finds a resolution (or resolutions), it will be posted in MS's Knowledge base and posted here in these forums. If anyone wants his contact information, or how to contact tech support for your purchased product, private message me.

Message Edited by RoyKelly on 05-27-2004 11:36 PM

Corrected Customer Support to Tech Support

Message Edited by RoyKelly on 05-28-2004 11:04 PM

The removal of all Zone Alarm file we could find and multiple rebootes did NOT fix the problem. I have also searched Google, Symantec, and McAfee for the problem we have been having to see if we might possibley have a virus (as Tech Support said we did) with no results found.

We are currently about halfway through the process of "burning it down" (for those who don't know - fdisk, format, and reload). We were able to save most of our documents and pictures because they had been backed up two weeks ago, but should not have to do this because of an update to a firewall that I have trusted for over three years.

Message Edited by RoyKelly on 05-29-2004 06:02 PM

Operating System: Windows XP Pro
Product Name: ZoneAlarm Pro
Software Version: 4.5

UPDATE: We are FINALLY back at the desktop and reinstalling drivers and applications. WHAT A PAIN!!!!!!

For the ongoing saga, check out http://forum.zonelabs.org/zonelabs/board/message?board.id=inst&message.id=12633 .

For some other problems, check out http://forum.zonelabs.org/zonelabs/board/message?board.id=inst&message.id=12654

Hope this helps someone

[glc]

From today's LangaList newsletter:

2) New ZoneAlarm Version Disappoints

ZoneAlarm is beginning to suffer from "kitchen sink" syndrome: Each
version has added more and more features until what once was a simple,
elegant firewall is now a complex security suite.

The newest version of ZA Pro is supposed to add active antivirus
protection to your mail stream. I really didn't need this function--- I
already have an AV tool guarding the mail--- but didn't see a way to tell
ZAP to disable its separate AV protection. Maybe the setting was there,
but I never got that far...

As soon as I tried gathering mail, my resident AV tool (Norton) went
nuts, popping up an unending stream of "virus found and removed..."
messages. My guess is that ZA changed the way it processes and stores
mail files, so that my AV tool no longer recognized the already-processed
files as safe. I wasted an hour or so trying to get the two tools to play
nice, but eventually gave up in disgust: Who has time for this? I tried
uninstalling the new ZAP and reinstalling the previous version, but
Norton remained badly hosed by all the diddling I'd done to it. In the
end, it was faster and simpler for me to roll my system back to the pre-
change state, using ZAP 4x as a firewall, and Norton for AV protection.
Now everything works fine again.

I'm not the only one having trouble:

Hi Fred: I've used Zone Alarm for a couple of years now and
really like it. However the latest version (zap_50_590_015) has
slowed my XP system to a crawl - especially MailWasher and
Outlook Express. ---Ian Patton

Dear Fred, I will probably just be adding my note to many
others in this regard. The newest Zone Alarm Pro, 5.0 update
blew away my cable internet connection and caused my machine to
reset every time I attempted to get mail or browse the web. I
was forced to remove it and reinstall a prior version, and it
wasn't just easy. If your other readers have a similar problem,
they should know to call customer service, not tech support,
and report a "no access issue." This will be handled for free
but the TS guys are $3 a minute, even if the problem is caused
by their software. It was suggested that my Process Guard
caused the problem. But I removed that and upgraded again with
the same result. The techs told me this update was a week or
two old and had been removed from the site once already for a
similar bug. I have auto update notices on this software. Maybe
I shouldn't allow updates until they are a month or two old. --
-Pat Murphy

.... and there are other letters too. In short, if you have a copy of ZA
4x, hang on to it. At the very least, the 5x version seems not ready for
prime time; and it may simply have become too big, too complex, and too
unwieldy for its own--- or our--- good.