Re: Norton Firewall 2002

From: Joseph V. Morris (jvmorris_at_erols.com)
Date: 05/10/03 

Date: Sat, 10 May 2003 14:56:40 -0400

Inline, below ...

"Granpa Fisk" <steve_on_lists@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:f71c01f1.0305060556.61c0a1bd@posting.google.com...
> In Norton Firewall Eventlog I get the following (error) message:
>
> "No logged in Account. The present default action is to permit
communications."

In the first place, that particular message should only occur with NIS 2002
(v 4.0.x), not with NPF 2002. In what follows, I'm assuming that you're
actually running NIS, not NPF. (Only NIS 2002 supports User Accounts, NPF
does not.)

> I would like to know how to make the "no logged in account" message stop
appearing.

If this is indeed NIS, rather than NPF, when you open the NIS console, you
should see (in the left-hand pane) a listing for Parental Control. When you
click on that field, you should see it expand to display "Parental Control
Settings" and "User Accounts". Again, if this is indeed NIS 2002 rather
than NPF 2002 and you do NOT see this entry in the left-hand pane, I would
assume you failed to install Parental Controls and that can create problems
in NIS 2002 (documented problem). In this instance, you'll need to
uninstall NIS and then re-install. This time, take care to install Parental
Controls.

Once you've got Parental Controls showing, DISABLE (i.e., UNCHECK) the
entry on that screen in the NIS Console. The User Accounts entry, however,
will still be active. Switch to that pane. You should see a User Account
labeled "Administrator" of Type "Supervisor" on that pane and it should now
be marked as "Startup Account".

Now, in Win XP, you can synchronize your NIS User Accounts with your XP User
Accounts. I would recommend that you do this by running the User Account
Wizard at the top of the right-hand pane. (If nothing else, this ensures
that the firewall event log will accurately reflect which User Account was
active when a firewall event occurs.) When the Wizard is finished, you
should see a list of your pre-established Win XP User Accounts listed in the
bottom of the right-hand pane. At this point, you can further modify the
"Account Type" settings for each of the accounts, but you should only do
this after CAREFULLY reading the NIS Help File on "User Accounts".

Incidentally, there are important distinctions between Win XP Home and Win
XP Pro (in terms of what sort of XP User Accounts exist). There is a
complex interplay between XP and NIS User Accounts, with the most
restrictive conditions of BOTH being the ones that apply. See the Help File
and think about what it says (not very well, admittedly).

> ========Details==============================

> I've just done a clean install:
> Format
>
> 1 install Win XP from CDRom
> 2 install optional fax from Win XP from CDRom
> 3 install Win XP SP1 from CDRom
> 4 installed Norton Ghost
> 5 installed Norton Firewall

By rights, there are any number of options that should have been presented
during the "Norton Firewall" install, but you have not indicated what
choice(s) you made.

> 6 Made a Ghost copy of steps 1-5 for testing
>
> At no point did I connect to anything over the phone
> line (dial up modem)
>
> After each step I checked the WIN XP eventlog
> for unexplained errors.

Got that -- and I assume that this means that you did not run LiveUpdate to
get updates to the install of Norton Firewall. You should have done that at
this point.
>
> Finally, I did a power-down boot, and connected
> first to my ISP and then to Google via Iexplorer.

If you actually managed to connect to your ISP and
then to Google, that means one (or both) of two things:
1) You have the Firewall Security Level set to either Medium
     or None (which effectively disables the firewall) [On the
     left-hand pane, select "Personal Firewall" to expand the list
     and then select "Personal Firewall Settings". "Enable
     Security" should be CHECKED. Now, click on the
     "Custom Level..." command button. When a new window
     opens, change the setting for "Personal Firewall" to "High"
     and confirm that the box labeled "Alert when Unused Ports
     are Accessed" is NOT Checked (i.e., DISABLED).]and/or
2) You have the Firewall set to Automatically Create Firewall
     rules for known applications. [On the
     left-hand pane, select "Personal Firewall" to expand the list
     and then select "Internet Access Control". Wait until the list
     of applications for which firewall rules are already defined has
     an opportunity to load and display. Click on the "Configure"
     command button in the right-hand pane at this point. This
     displays a drop-down list. UNCHECK (i.e., DISABLE) "Enable
     Automatic Internet Access Control" in this list (assuming it's
     currently checked. ]
If you complete items 1 and 2, NIS/NPF will still prompt you when a NEW
application first attempts to access the Internet. If NIS/NPF recognizes
the application, you will be presented with an opportunity for NIS/NPF
to automatically configure rules for this application in the resulting
dialog box. And, if you don't yourself know how to set up rules for the
app in question, this is generally a safe choice.

> After each step I checked Norton Eventlog. The
> message above only appeared when I opened
> IExplorer. (I connected to my ISP without the msg
> appearing).

This rather suggests that, for some reason, you have the NIS/NPF firewall
set to "None" (and possibly reporting level set to "High").
. . . .
> I have one user account set for administrator status.

Does the above refer to a Win XP User Account or a NIS User Account? (Of
course, if you synchronize the two -- which you didn't indicate you had
done -- the two are probably the same.)
>
> I explicitly log into WIN at boot up using the password for
> this user account.

On Win XP, I don't think you have any option -- but this does make it sound
like your preceding statement is a reference to a Win XP user account which
is not yet synchronized with your NIS User Accounts.

Hope this is of some help. 

--
Regards,
    Joseph V. Morris
    jvmorris@erols.com
Quantcast