Warning: Comodo Will Ruin Your Machine

Two days ago, I installed the Comodo Defense+ firewall on my Dell Vostro laptop with XP SP3. Since then, I've been unable to get onto the Internet. (I'm at work now.) I did a virus scan--nothing. I decided to uninstall Comodo--only it wasn't listed on the add/delete programs list. So I logged in as admin and deleted the entire Comodo folder from the Programs folder.

When I run the diagnostic, it says that the winsock catalog has an error. I've done the command-line reset of winsock, but when I reboot, I get the same error. I also did the command-line reset of my IP. I don't think it worked, though. I have run malwarebytes twice and my Avast scan (on thorough) twice on all files. Yet nothing works. I disabled the Windows firewall and retried the winsock reset--still nothing.

I am desperate for some help. I'm considering shelling out for Geek Squad to come by. I greatly appreciate any advice! (I will check for replies from work and from a nearby library's public computer tomorrow.)

 

I took to heart the many recommendations for the Comodo firewall found on this site and downloaded the thing to my laptop (XP SP3). Big mistake. It has evidently removed registry entries from my OS. I'm someone who ran Avira and superantispy weekly, kept everything updated, kept MS updates automatic. I shouldn't have had a problem.

And I didn't until I downloaded Commode-Oh. Now I cannot get onto the Internet, even after manually removing Commode-Oh (the only firewall that doesn't come with an uninstall option)! And I've tried everything--system restore (no can do for some reason), resetting TCP/IP, resetting winsock, and running every kind of antivirus/malware scan you can think of. There is no malware, spyware, or virus, and my connection is fine.

Comodo has royally () my machine. Hard.

I'm posting this so that someone else considering this horrible software will have a chance at seeing something other than the chorus of Comodo cheerleading.

I know that some of you have had good luck with it, and I'm glad you have--but people deserve to know that this experience is not universal.

 

Wow, that shouldnt happen, (Running on 7 machines here :/)

Prehaps you overdid your weekly maintenance, this program doesnt mess around with the registries at all, and it offers real time protection as well as on activation virus scanning for programs etc, it does what it says on the label, i can manage connections in or out, tasks, everything, i find comodo a pleasure to work with.

Try a system restore for your connection?

 

I don't like 3rd party Firewall, unless it came with the security suite.
Currently, I am using Windows Firewall. I don't have any problems with it.
Actually, firewall is not primary protection. So, I don't really pay attention on it.

 

Sorry to hear about your problems.
Have you tried running the Comodo Registry File Cleaner? link.

 

I merged your threads. Do not make 2 threads on the same subject as it is not allowed.

 

well this seems to be an isolated incident with comodo, any program will ruin a computer once in a while, theres often just too many variables for software engineers to consider all of them, which leads to conflicts. comodo is still great software for most, which is why I kind of disagree with the definite thread title a bit.

@padme, please marry me, it is allowed

 

It's most likely you denied or isolated a program such as explorer.exe during a D+ pop up. I believe if you removed all rules and started over you could easily fix the problem.

 

I wouldn't bother with Geek Squad, the Comodo forum should be able to help you over come any problems

 

thread titles like this are not helpful or correct. many people have been running comodo firewall with no problems. i have used it on my vista 64 and windows 7 and xp32 with no problems for nearly 2 years. what you mean is that 'something i have done on my computer with comodo firewall has ruined my computer'
do you have backups? use them. if not, google for windows backup programs. a disc image program (eg Acronis True Image) is easy and very quick to recover from this sort of problem. try to keep you own files seperate from the OS, eg. on a D: partition. xp is only an operating system. copy all the c:drive stuff to an external disc then you can reiinstall xp if all else fails. next time, ensure you are administrator when you install it, disable the windows firewall (only use one firewall) and check for error messages and some message to say the program has correctly installed, also check the add/remove programs.

 

That and I doubt the Geek Squad would be able to figure out the issue. They would probably charge you an insane amount to reinstall Windows and give you some made up reason.

 

Most probably, he denied one of the svchost.exe processes the network access that they need. NEVER EVER BLOCK THE SVCHOST.EXE PROCESS.

The svchost.exe process can be hijacked and is vulnerable, but in Vista and Windows 7, there are included checks and protections to make sure that vital system processes are not tampered with.

 

You know, Comodo isn't dedicated to ruin your machine. They have a forum where I'm sure you can ask about your issue, no need to be wasting money on Geek Squad (and getting overcharged for that).

http://forums.comodo.com/

 

And on top of that, they'd probably muff the reinstallation as well. Those folks don't merit the moniker "Geeks."

But, back to the OP's OP - why in Heaven's name did you go in and manually delete the files for Comodo? You've probably permanently stuffed up your installation, since you've now got registry entries that point to files that no longer exist. Did you consider trying to use the app's own uninstaller - if you couldn't find it, you ought to have googled the issue before you went and manually shredded your installation.

If you're really lucky, you haven't turned off system restore, and you have at least one restore point saved from before you first installed Comodo. If so, then I would suggest attempting a system restore to a point before you installed Comodo - that will hopefully rectify your registry, and leave any remaining Comodo files as ophans that won't do anything more to your system. If you're not so lucky, you may need to try something a little more drastic.

 

OK, maybe "ruin your machine" is a little exaggerated, in that the hardware is not shot (as far as I know) .But I've been unable to get on the Internet at home for almost a week. I've tried every conceivable command-line fix--and system restore, which for some baffling reason is no longer available, even though had the space available to it set to the max.

What I'm having to ultimately do is reinstall XP. I can't find my original install disk (and am not even sure I received any, as everything was pre-installed), so I've requested those from Dell. Hopefully that won't take inordinately long.

I do appreciate the replies. And I'm sincerely glad some people have found the firewall to work well for them. I'm just very frustrated in that I did all the stuff one is supposed to do (updating regularly, etc.) and then got nailed by the very thing that was supposed to protect me. It's like that old quote--"Who will watch the watchers?" Ah, well. There are worse things in life.

I do hope that anyone considering Comodo will at least know of the *potential* for malfunctions like this one and that there is no uninstall key for it. That makes it quite unusual, if I'm not mistaken. I was doing great with the Windows firewall and AVG (and later Avira).

 

Jin07: Thanks for the warning re. GeekSquad.

Metril: You overestimate my abilities. I don't know how to deny one of the svchost.exe processes--although it's possible I did so inadvertently upon installing.

Shyster: You're right. It was impulsive of me to delete the Comodo folder. I couldn't google the answer because I couldn't get onto the Internet. And I thought that surely the Comodo folder would just have Comodo stuff in it--so what harm could come of deleting it?

As to sys restore: I never turned it off and had several restore points; I tried restoring to a few of these. Each time it looked like it was going to work until the machine had rebooted--and then it told me the restore was not available and no files had been changed. Odd.

As to the Comodo forum: if I'm not mistaken, you have to be logged in and whatnot, which you have to do upon installing Comodo--and I did not. At any rate, I'm relegated to using the library computer and workplace computer for the time being.

I'll repost as to the ultimate outcome, in case my experience can help others.

 

Anyone can join the Comodo forum whether they have a Comodo program or not. Here's the direct link.

http://forums.comodo.com/install_setup_configuration_help-b137.0/

Do your best to accurately title and describe your problem.

 

While it may sound odd, have you considered reinstalling Comodo (just as you originally did) and then try to uninstall it properly?
Read/search for the proper uninstall steps on the Comodo forum.
Cheers.

 

Actually a good point I was going to suggest. Another option, if they can reinstall and open the GUI, they should be able to remove all (blocked) entries from D+ and the firewall, hopefully able to start over.

 

I was a little afraid of that - it's possible (although I do not know for sure, as I am not privy to the internal workings of system restore) that it's not working because it's looking for the Comodo files that were deleted, and when it cannot find them, it's backing out and failing the restoration operation. If that's the case, then that would be another reason to try Baserk's suggestion of reinstalling Comodo; once the Comodo files are back in their proper places, that might make it possible to complete a system restore (although I emphasize "possible" - this is a bit of uncharted water, here).

 

I have noticed whenever this happens what you need to do is run system restore from safe mode instead. Go into safe mode (press f8) before you see the windows load screen and then try running system restore from there and see what happens.

 

My problem with Comodo was an install of Ubantu turned it off in the process, just killed it, so i installed outpost and uninstalled Commodo and ubantu.

 

You said you did a winsock reset.

Was this the winsock fix you tried?

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/winsockxpfix.html

 

I'm trying to remember how I fixed Winsock when I messed it up on my work computer. I remember the basic Winsock reset command didn't work, but I had to do more...

Hmmm. I'll try to remember.

Back to the main topic though, Comodo has never messed my systems up, but it has been responsible for some freezing/sluggishness.

Edit: Maybe try this. It seems like by following all that through to the letter, I got it working. Oh, and I know it says SP2, but the machine I was on was running SP3. Anyways, cheers...

 

Well unfortunately Comodo also messed up my computer, and its weird since I have it installed in all my family laptops with no problem and yesterday that I installed it in my new laptop the computer started to crash and I couldn't access some programs. I am not 100% sure comodo did it, but problems started immediately after restarting my system after installation.

 

Did you block or isolate any processes?

 

Well I don't think so, but I am not 100% sure, I've had nothing but good experiences with comodo so I will try to install it again. By the way, does anybody knows of a good tutorial or guide to configure it correctly??

Thanks

 

These tutorials from Raymond.cc and the Comodo forum and here offer quite some information.
Mind you, make your own choice regarding the level of security (e.g. never tick 'paranoid' mode).
Cheers.

 

You can try this...


http://personalfirewall.comodo.com/C...User_Guide.pdf

 

Baserk and Hiker thank you very much for the guides, i am installing comodo right now and I will report back on how it goes.

Thank you

 

Apparently NBR truncating the URL renderes it useless. Hopefully it can be found from this page...

http://www.comodo.com/home/internet-security/firewall.php

user guide, under support

or try it's Tinyurl

http://tinyurl.com/kndmwr

 

The OP hasn't made any mention of checking the firewall rules... it may be that CF accidentally blocked some essential system process. As obvious as this may sound, it hasn't been mentioned.