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Garrett

If after installing or updating to ZoneAlarm Pro version 3 you find that all your VDS 4 apps and VDS 4 itself tells you that an error has occured, and your programs will not start due to this, it's due to ZoneAlarm Pro 3.

The error message reads that the vdsrun40.dll has caused an error with the kernel32.dll

I have not yet been able to find out what in ZA Pro is causing this. It may just be one of the security settings in ZA Pro that needs to be adjusted.

If anyone else runs into this problem and figures out what exactly is causing it, and if you've been able to resolve it, drop a post in here for the rest of us.

Best regards,
-Garrett

PGWARE · **Web Host** Joined: 29 Dec 2001 Posts: 1565

It's not just with VDS. A customer recently emailed me saying he installed ZoneAlarm and my programs PCMedik, Throttle, SuperRam are not working on his computer. Those 3 programs are made in Delphi not VDS and report the same problems. 'Illegal Page Fault in modual KERNEL32.DLL at ....'

ZoneAlarm/ZoneAlarm are faulty products. I tried them on XP and the kernel message does not show up. This appears to be a problem on Windows 98 and Me computers from what my customer emailed me.

Also when I tried ZoneAlarm/ZoneAlaram on my computer to test it would not let me uninstall them, nor did it function right. I had to manually go step by step to remove all traces of this program.

Not to mention ZoneLabs contacted me last month to do a partnership in selling PCMedik on their site for a cut off all sales. I agreed and sent them a free trial license. I have yet to hear from them about this partnership again even though when we originally were making a deal they would reply to my email within hours. However I do think they will soon have a similar product like PCMedik available on their site for sale once they reverse engineer PCMedik.

AVOID ZoneAlaram and Zone Labs products!!!

PGWARE · **Web Host** Joined: 29 Dec 2001 Posts: 1565

Garrett and I were working on this yesterday and found the problem. The problem is due to Petite/ZoneAlarm on Windows 98/98SE/Me computers. ZoneAlarm possibly is modifying the KERNEL32.DLL and any exe/dll compressed with Petite simply will crash (might be due to modified api's within KERNEL32.DLL).

The vdsrun40.dll is compressed with Petite, and so too are the programs I distribute. If you do not petite compress these files then they work fine on ZoneAlarm Windows 98/98SE/Me computers.

Both Garrett and I contacted ZoneAlarm about this and hopefully they can fix it because it is their error. I've also contacted Ian Luck (author of Petite) and he's already contacted me back and is looking into it.

Best case senario for all of us is that ZoneAlarm fixes the problem. If Ian fixes the problem/conflict with Petite and ZoneAlarm that would be great but the vdsrun40.dll is already compressed with an older copy of Petite.

It would take us contacting SADE and asking them to recompile/compress VDS4 with the new Petite and release a new version. Quite honestly that option will take much longer then if ZoneAlarm would release a fix, because of the current situation where SADE cannot be contacted.

I suggest all of you who use VDS4 and need your exe's to run on Win98/98SE/Me computers which have ZoneAlarm installed to contact ZoneLabs (www.zonelabs.com) and ask for a fix. Trust me there are thousands of people out there with such a configuration, I receive emails daily now with people having problems running my software because of this problem.

marty · Professional Member Joined: 10 May 2001 Posts: 789

Would there be a way to detect ZoneAlarm by some other way then a VDS app?

oh and by the way SADE responds to emails and in there forum... I sent a bug and they replied the same day... Maybe it's worth a shot...

See ya...

Garrett · Posted: Wed Mar 13, 2002 9:22 pm Post subject:

It's a matter of priorities in SADE's case.. Without the rest of their business, they would not be able to support VDS. So when the rest of their business was having a bit of a problem, their focus and attention was on that to insure that they didn't go out of business. If that happened, then we'd surely lose all hope for VDS.

Like anyone else, I don't like lack of response or action on the part of an author, but I'm not so upset with SADE about this due to the situation they are in.

-Garrett

nick · Posted: Wed Mar 13, 2002 9:24 pm Post subject:

My lawyer says he can't wait for one of my customers to call with this problem when they try to use my programs. I guess fortunately for me most of my products are used on internet and intranet servers that don't run their mickey-mouse programs.

marty · Professional Member Joined: 10 May 2001 Posts: 789

Ok you said it's a VDS 4 problem, does that mean users of VDS 3.x don't have the problem?

If so, can someone do a little app. with version of VDS 3.x that detects ZoneAlram thru let's say the registry and give a popup warning and compile it. That way VDS 4 users could include this little app in their progs to warn the users of possible conflicts with ZoneAlarm..

Just a temporay idea like that...

Cool

PGWARE · **Web Host** Joined: 29 Dec 2001 Posts: 1565

Its specifically a ZONE ALARM + PETITE + WIN 98 problem. Any file compressed by PETITE will crash when Zone Alarm Pro 3 is installed on a Windows 98 computer. The vdsrun40.dll is compressed with Petite, and so are many of my dll's such as vdsmpeg, vdsblowfish, vdsobj, vdsipp, etc.
The email I sent to Zone Labs has yet to be answered, I've emailed the author of Petite and he got back to me the next day and said he will quickly look into it. I'd rather ZoneLabs fixed the problem with their software that way we dont have to recompile dll's and the vdsrun40.dll with a new verison of Petite to bypass ZoneLabs bug.

marty · Professional Member Joined: 10 May 2001 Posts: 789

Ok thanks.

Hopefully they will fix this problem very quickly...

I will send a bug to them myself for my product.

Cool

PGWARE · **Web Host** Joined: 29 Dec 2001 Posts: 1565

I spoke with the head of SADE about an hour ago. Their already preparing a fix for this. Mind you this is a bug with ZoneLabs product not with VDS. The fix should be available within 1-2 weeks so please be patient. Remember if you want to file a complaint please do so with ZoneLabs as this is the cause of their defunct software.

marty · Professional Member Joined: 10 May 2001 Posts: 789

My bug was for ZoneLabs and not for VDS... but thanks for letting me know...

Garrett · Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2002 2:40 am Post subject:

PGWARE · **Web Host** Joined: 29 Dec 2001 Posts: 1565

They never emailed me back either. You couldn't pay me to use their software with shotty support like that, I use the Windows XP internal firewall and it works just fine.

Mac · Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2002 7:43 pm Post subject:

Hmmm... sounds kinda like the support we were
getting from SADE a couple of months ago.... Confused

Mac · Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2002 8:05 pm Post subject:

If anyone wants to check their firewall, here's
a place to test it:

https://grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2

BTW, the free version of ZoneAlarm returns
"stealth" on both tests...

Cheers, Mac Smile