Defense+ Issue: "... Not a Valid Win32 Application" [Merged Threads]

I have previously posted that v3 had messed up outlook express. I did not have time to fix this before everything came to a halt. All applications cannot be started. I do not even have permission to shut the machine down now (I pull the plug). Nothing in the start menu will work. I am posting this on a friends pc and deeply regretting updating to v3. Any advice?

I made that mistake of ‘updating’. As a result, it slowed my pc to a crawl. Games would not load. Task mgr locked up and became useless. Unable to close the program. System utilities became useless. "such and such is not a valid Win32 app’ and then the "you do not have permission to shut down windows’ when I tried to reboot. What the hell?!?! I Have come to the conclusion over the years, that it is extremely useful to install windows XP SP2 2x on the same computer, and dual boot XP with XP. I do this by partioning off a 5GB partition for the ‘Recovery OS’ I do this because if NTLDR becomes corrupted. your ■■■■■■■! You cant copy it from any other puter or the cd. It has to come from THAT computer. Each install of XP is custom to THAT computer. So by installing it twice, you get 2 copies of core files, one copy u use all the time, the second u use in situations like this.

Anyways, I booted into my recovery OS, and started moving files back over to my primary OS, such as the MSC’s for system utilities, then rebooted back into my primary OS. Still no go. I tried system restore, directly from the recovery OS, tried accessing it from the primary OS, and oopening the restore file on the rocovery OS partitioon, no go. I tried sys restore from start menu, however the start menu no longer worked. it would just ‘hang’

So, then i rebooted to safe mode, logged in as admin, and did sys restore from a week ago, and all is ok. However I had to do it twice, as the first time it didnt work. Even so, this one event has really rocked this system and its not as stable as it used to be before installing V3. If your thinking about upgrading, I advise you to NOT upgrade. I am lucky I think outside of the box with this stuff. Had this happened to my mom, she would have thrown out the computer.

Can you get into Safe Mode on your pc? You should be able to uninstall CFP3 from there.

Just hit the F8 key while it is booting. You might have to keep hitting the F8 key so that it will see it.

You can also do a system restore from there also. I would try this first.

jasper

Thanks for the info. I will try this. Does anyone know why v3 is causing so many problems? Also, if I am successful in uninstalling v3, can I get v2 back from anywhere? Thanks.

I have found that with Comodo Firewall v2.4 that after intial installation, none of my programs would complete their access to the web. I had to tell Comodo to “Allow Fragmented IP Datagrams”. Everything worked after that. Where I live at, my DSL is on a “Reach” and I experience a high number of fragmented packets.
When I upgraded to Comodo Firewall v3, I experienced a similar Non-Responsive effect. Version 3, by default, allowed fragmented datagrams. So there was something else blocking my way. At the top of Comodo’s Diplay page there are 4 menu options: Summary, Firewall, Defense+, Miscellaneous. Choose “Firewall”. Under “Firewall Tasks” choose “Advanced”. Out of the four options available, choose “Attack Detection Settings”.
Under this menu you will find 2 tabbed headings. Choose “Miscellaneous”. Un-Check “Do Protocol Analysis”.
I have not had a problem with any of my programs accessing the web after unchecking this option.
I have found that if I leave the default settings Comodo sets at installation, nothing will work. You have to find the proper options that will work for you. The ones I have listed here today have worked for me.

sorry to hear of your bad luck, but did you try disabling D+ and go from that point?

Disable “Defense+”. It is a truely aweful addition to the once great firewall. It stops applications working, and uses excess resources. That should help you.

Comodo averages .14% - 1% of my CPU usage and less than 8mb ram, D+ if set properly causes no issues for me, i had major issues when D+ was not set properly

Was prompted to upgrade which I did and went for the advanced set up with self learning and Defence+. Assumed that was some new great feature, otherwise there would not have been prompts to include it in the set up.

All was well at first but after trying to activate Capture a very small screen printing program from my quick lauch bar everything went to pot. I received an alert which I thought was odd as the previous 2.4 version never asked me about explorer activating an app from quick launch before. I selected treat as stand alone application, and remember. Well I guess this was the wrong response, as I immediately got the warning that the application file “exe” was not a valid Win32 Application. In a panic, I clicked on several other applications from quick launch with the same results. Thinking maybe it was just quicklaunch I went to the program folders, but unfortunatly, I cannot run the programs at all now, the executables will no longer work.

I can’t hit restart as I saw in another post that a user had a bad experience with that. There doesn’t seem to be a nother post like mine or with a fix to this problem.

I’m running WinXp with SP2, 32Bit, Pentium 4 CPU 3.06 GHZ, 1 G RAM. Comodo Firewall Pro v3.013.268. In the background AVG Free and Spyware Blaser. XP firewall is turned off.

I ran this for a couple of days with no problems, it wasn’t until I tried launching the program from quick launch that this happened. And sorry I can’t run Dr. Watson, system doesn’t recognize it as a Win32 application.

I ran the diagnostics and Comodo detects no problems. I tried adding the specific program as a trusted program and opening it, with no luck, so there is a deeper problem here.

I would like to continue to use this version, so if I ciould get some help I would appreciate it. I’m even afraid to uninstall as I’ve read that some users have had problems with a clean install and had to reboot in safemode and deal with registry issues. I’m not up for that. I’ll stay connected with my system up for at least a day to see if I can get a response. Please let me know what to do. I really think there was not enough information provided in how this new system would work. I consider myself a power user, as long as I’m provided enough information, I can understand most software programs. Obviously I was ill prepared. I actually tried to read some of the help menus, but the system kept crashing. I suppose if I had been able to, I may have avoided this mess.

Because I cannot find anything on topic and need immediate assistance I submitted this as an issue as well. Please Let me know what other info you need.

Thanks,

J

Have a look in Defense + > Advanced > Computer Security Policy review the list and see what is blocked in there. You can edit any of the one’s that are blocked.

HTH.

There’s software, like Bart’s Preinstalled Environment and Winternals Administrators Pak, for this kind of stuf… Besides that, Linux LiveCDs can be used, etc.

Should be better then throwing out your PC :wink:

OS: Windows XP SP2 Home ( Windows DEP was disabled)
AV: Eset NOD32 2.70.39
Windows defender and Sandboxie 3.02 installed.

When using CPF 2.4.18.184 , No problem. I installed CPF v3 successfully. But system runned only for short time, the fatal error occured. I could not run any Windows program. While clicking any program icon, a alert message displayed:" It is not a Win32 program". System could not run normally. I must use Ghost to restore system from the mirror file and still use CFP v2 now.

I do not know what causes this error so askeverybody for help. While understanding the detail of causing error I will install CPF v3 again. CPF is one of the best PFWs. I believe in it very much.

Thanks a lot.

With “Defens + Security” enabled i cant open WinRAR. Windows says me it is not a Win32 application.

With “Defens + Security” desabled works, no problem.

Can you help me? please?

THANKS

(Sorry for my bad english!)

Help is already here :wink:

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Can you please post me the link to the topic?

The Search funktion was not really helpful!

https://forums.comodo.com/magyar_hungarian/comodo_firewall_pro_30_aiexcltmeneti_manuaiexcllis_javashytaiexclsok-t15978.0.html;msg109194#msg109194

Thx

Same thing happened to me. I’ve added my OS and some programs I use to my sig. Hopefully that will help see commonalities which may be useful in ironing out the bugs .

OK BUT before using these links please look at BEFORE YOU SUBMIT ANY HELP REQUEST USE THE SEARCH TESTBOX IN THE DARK GREY AREA and PM me if I need to change that topic and provide more informations.
We need to reduce duplicate topics so if that post is not useful I need to change it.


https://forums.comodo.com/help_for_v3/not_a_win32_application-t15992.0.html https://forums.comodo.com/help_for_v3/is_not_a_valid_win32_application-t15233.0.html https://forums.comodo.com/help_for_v3/everything_is_not_a_valid_win32_application-t15673.0.html https://forums.comodo.com/help_for_v3/help_d_issue_is_not_a_valid_win32_application-t14977.0.html

After several days of entirely satisfactory experience with CFP 3.0.13.268 on Windows XPSP2, I encountered a problem yesterday that is similar to the OP’s in some respects. I was asked by a CFP popup about a program that it had newly encountered: I was given the choices of designating it as “Installer or Updater” [which it was clearly not], or as “Windows System Application” [which I believe it was clearly not], or as “Isolated Program”. I chose the last, stupidly, as it turned out. Immediately thereafter every program I tried to start was labelled “so-and-so is not a valid Win32 Application”. The Start menu mostly didn’t work either. As luck would have it, I encountered this problem immediately after completing and verifying an Acronis image on an external drive. I restored the system with that image, started the same program again, but this time left it as “Installer or Updater”. Now everything worked perfectly and continues to do so today.

I can find in the help files no explanation of the meanings of the choices from which I selected. It would be useful to know if this experience throws any light on the many other instances of invalid programs that have been mentioned in others threads in this forum recently.

I cant PM you gibran :slight_smile:

This was useful for me:
https://forums.comodo.com/help_for_v3/help_d_issue_is_not_a_valid_win32_application-t14977.0.html

But so its better explained:
Defense+ > Advanced > Computer Security Policy > search: %windir%\explorer.exe > Edit > Access Rights > Run an executable > Modify > Blocked Applications > Delete the Application affected > restart COMODO Firewall

I saw many people has this problem, maybe can you post the solution here?: https://forums.comodo.com/help_for_v3/attn_cfp_30_temporary_fixes-t15561.0.html

Thank you very much!

;D

Hi Pudelein - Do you mean “Blocked Program” where you cite “Isolated Program”? You can alter that designation (if I have understood it right) if you can recall the program’s name by clicking:
Defense+>Advanced>Computer Security Policies>(Locate and Select the entry for the blocked program)>Edit. On the edit screen, click the drop-down beside “Use a Predefined Policy” and change the choice from Blocked to LAN. You might want to choose “Use a Custom Policy” if you continue to get alerts over the program in question.