Windows Vista Firewall Problems

[ReneeA65]

I'm running Vista on my new laptop and have had a couple problems with my
firewall turning off by itself. I do have McAfee on it that also keeps
saying that there is an error with security and that it has stopped running.
It does this everytime I turn it on and go online. I do have an additional
anti-virus program called Threatfire which is another free downloadable
program that was suggested by a couple of local computer techs. Whenever I
run a virus scan everything comes up clean with the exception of Threatfire
alerting me several times of potential malware that I've quarantined. I
noticed on a previous question that a anti-virus program called "AVG" is
mentioned and another download through Kaspersky.com. Has anyone else even
heard of ThreatFire and is it comparable to these other free antivirus
programs??? Any suggestions would be great. I need all the help I can get.
Thanks.

 

[Mick Murphy]

As Shaun told you:2 Firewalls don't mix!

And neither do 2 runnng anti-viruses!
You are asking for trouble!

http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html

Avast is a low resources using anti-virus(also free), and is vista 32bit and
64bit compatible

http://www.spybot.info/en/index.html

Spybot Search & destroy is a very good anti-spyware program to install, and
update and scan your system with once a month.

If I was you, I would uninstall McAfee and threatfire???????.

Use Vista's firewall,and the anti-virus and anti-spyware programs that i
have left you links for.

 

[Robinb]

I do not like threatfire- it messed up one of my computers real bad
I use AVG free for antivirus
and yes you cannot run more than one antivirus program and you cannot run
more than one firewall program. Mega conflicts if you do so

robin

 

[Firehorse]

I've just looked at this thread, as I have been having the same problems too.
Every time that I start up my computer my Windows Firewall keeps saying that
I have turned it off though my Norton Protection Centre keeps telling me that
it's Firewall is secure and that my Spyware (Spysweeper) has been switched
off, though it hasn't been. When I go to my Windows Security Centre to
switch the Windows Firewall back on, it is saying under the Malware section
that it can't detect any Virus protection program, which scares me, though
when I check back with the Norton Security Centre, it says that the Virus
protection is 'secure'. It's making me go around in circles with all these
alerts that keep coming up upon start up and worrying if my computer is
properly protected.

I've been in touch with HP help technicians, but they say that I should
switch off my Norton Firewall by uninstalling it and seeing if the problem
persists with the Windows Firewall alerts. The Norton techs, keep repeating
the problem back to me and haven't been much help at all - though they have
said it is a conflict with the two firewalls and I shouldn't be worried about
it. Yet I still have this annoying problem with the alerts coming up all the
time.

What is annoying is that I have just got all these alerts come up in the
past two weeks. Before they were all working fine. Should I get rid of one
of my firewalls ....Norton or Windows Vista's??? Is one better than the
other?

Why is the problem suddenly arising now when it was working fine before?

 

[Firehorse]

PS. I am running Windows Vista 64bit on my computer.

 

[DL]

If you install a Internet Security application, it should switch off the Win
Firewall, and if that IS solution is recognised by the Win Security Centre
you should see no problems
Depending what version of Norton is involved, and assuming your Spysweeper
is a running process (ie you dont have to run Spysweeper manually) the two
of these may be causing conflicts.
If spysweeper is a running process I would suggest uninstalling this,
rebooting & retesting