Last night’s Comodo update began to download and install (without warning or allowing its scheduling by the user), and the moment it finished, Comodo “disappeared” from the system tray. It also prevented it from being opened and may have stopped it from functioning as well. (This Comodo Firewall Pro firewall was installed onto a Toshiba Satellite Laptop with a “Windows Vista Home Premium” OS about a week ago.)
I immediately right-clicked on the Comodo icon shortcut on the computer’s desktop, selected “Open,” and the Vista version of the rotating hourglass (the ‘spinning doughnut’) appeared, spinning, but with nothing else then happening. Comodo would not open or launch in any apparent way and no access to it could be found or was made apparent.
I then right-clicked the icon again, this time selecting “Run as Administrator.” The briefly appearing ‘spinning doughnut’ was soon replaced by a pop-up box which said “ERROR: Error while loading resources from C:\Program Files\COMODO\Firewall\cfp.dll. Aborting Application.” It was aborted, and as before, CFP could not be accessed at all.
I next opened “Windows Security Center” to check the status of any firewall capability. Under “Firewalls,” it said, “Windows Firewall and Comodo Firewall Pro both report that they are turned on,” followed by “Note: Two or more firewalls running at the same time can conflict with each other.”
Somehow, Windows believes COMODO is up and running even though there is no CFP icon in the systray (or whatever MS now calls Vista’s version of the systray). Vista also apparently launched “Windows Firewall” at some unknown point in time, either well before the CFP update or upon the update itself. Windows “Defender” had been disabled/shut off back when CFP was installed, and it remained so.
Anyway…
The only other place where I can find any evidence which suggests Comodo is actually running is under “Processes” in the “Windows Task Manager,” which shows “cfp.exe” listed twice, neither entry using any CPU resources (at least when staring at it). Very strangely, Windows Task Manager’s “Processes” also lists “FirewallSettings.exe,” a whopping 17 times! None of these are using any CPU resources either. I have no idea why it is listed so many times. Maybe I am causing a new launching of it every time I attempt to effect a resolution somewhere, though I don’t know what I have clicked on or opened 17 times since this began, except perhaps the desktop or start menu icon for CFP. (“FirewallSettings.exe” is, from what I understand, an MS program.)
I am denied the ability to shut off either of the two CFP.exe’s or any of the 17 “Firewall Settings.exe” processes while inside the Task Manager. Neither of this items are listed in the “Applications” section, and the “Services” section of the manager is completely blank.
Going to the Windows Security Center, I noticed that I am unable to effect any changes to the Windows Firewalls. I can not turn off “Windows Firewall” nor can I turn on “Windows Defender.” When I attempt the former, it says “Windows cannot access the specified device, path or file. You may not have appropriate permissions to access them.” When I attempt the latter, it says,“Windows Defender encountered an error: Ox800706ba. The RPC server is unavailable.”
Since the CFP update, by the way, I am repeatedly presented with access denials to numerous Windows functions and areas, very often with the words “The RPC server is unavailable” following each refusal of access. I am, for example, no longer allowed to view even the contents of my HD (i.e., C Drive), or even just the user programs on the C-drive (where I went looking to see if CFP was still there and if so, could I open it from there. So the CFP update has “shut the gates” to major sections of my own pc with the phrase that “the RPC server is unavailable!!!”
Theorizing something is (obviously) seriously corrupted about the Comodo update and/or now the firewall itself, I went to “My Computer” and attempted to uninstall it (My Computer now being the location of the familiar “Add/Remove Software” icon, moved from the Control Panel where it used to reside in XP - another pointless “improvement”), with the intention of reinstalling it from my saved Comodo installation file. When I attempted the uninstall, I was presented with the box which said the exact same thing when I attempted to open Comodo from the desktop, namely, “ERROR: Error while loading resources from C:\Program Files\COMODO\Firewall\cfp.dll. Aborting Application.”
So overall, not only has the latest COMODO FIREWALL PRO update completely shut off all access to any portion of the COMODO firewall itself, it has also apparently interfered with a range of Windows administration and management areas, preventing even routine access to them. I can not open or access CFP in any way (nor can I uninstall it), nor can I manage the generic Windows firewalls, among other things, this despite giving myself admin rights to everything I can while trying to overcome this issue.
I am about to attempt a system restore, something I’d really rather not do, but if today’s experiences are an indication of things to come, I may very well may not be able to do even this.
Does anyone have any idea what is wrong with COMODO’s update? Is anyone else having similar trouble? Are there any known solutions? Is there any means to enter an apparently running but completely hidden CFP and stop, control or even reverse this nightmarish update?
Thank you for reading all of this and pondering potential solutions. I am not an OS expert by any means (not even close), but will try any worthwile recommendation if the system retore fails. I’ll also post my relative success along the way to help others who may have been hammered by this update.