I’ve been running the new CFP 3 for a short while now and am quite pleased with it. I’ve gotten assistance on this forum to overcome a few issues at the beginning but so fare I’ve got no reason to think about going back to the old version.
Just yesterday I tried to use the portable applications I keep on my thumb drive and as expected, I received a lot of popups looking for a response. To keep this post short, I did all the things I would do with a typically installed application to allow it to run popup free. For some reason I can’t restart an application without approximately 10+ popups. Is there something different that has to be taken into consideration when running programs off an external/portable drive? It really seems odd. I’m not even concerned with web/network access for these apps. I just want to run them on my PC but am quite frustrated that I have to click so many times just to get them started.
To be specific I’m using the portable apps menu interface. I thought I found a similar post via a search but when I tried to follow it I didn’t see anything that appeared relevant. Hopefully I can overcome this with some assistance. Thank you,
One of the things I like about CFP 3 is that it’s both complex in terms of configurable, but predictable. That’s what makes me wonder why it’s not doing what I would expect it should do. To introduce these thumb drive based programs to CFP I’ve taken the same actions I would with any other application. In a few cases I can get it to follow my rules during a shutdown and restart of the application, meaning literally close it and without doing anything else, open it again. However, the majority of the time it prompts me numerous times to get the program started.
The portable apps run fine from my hard drive. Again, I set them up like any other, with an appropriate security policy, either to a custom predefined policy or an existing policy like trusted application.
To clarify what’s happening, there are a series of .exe files starting other .exe files. This is what CFP has a problem with.
What I’ve done is to make a custom policy, and under access rights, “Run and Executable,” (as you know the options are only Ask or Block - there is no allow) I defined applications that are allowed. In this case I made a Portable Apps policy and entered every .exe file I want to start. This was a lengthy process. I then assigned every file that causes a popup to this policy. Still no luck. I did notice that sometimes when I assign that application to this policy, it will show up later as a custom policy. That I don’t understand since I don’t have my Defense+ settings in any kind of learning mode. I use paranoid, with custom policy mode for the firewall settings.
What I’d like to do, if possible, would be to allow a named file, regardless of location, to be allowed. I’m talking about the equivalent of a wildcard * for the directory and then the application name. This should allow the same apps to follow the same rules regardless of whether they’re being lunched from my hard drive or my thumb drive.
I do realize for the most part I wouldn’t be running the same apps from both places, I just want to figure out why it’s not working for the odd time that I want to run an app from my thumb drive.
The only thing that came to mind was that the problem was due to the removable drive. I’m still trying and will post if I discover a work around.