I’ve been reviewing quite a few laptops for PC World. Recently, I brought home a laptop from a manufacturer I won’t name here, because the brand isn’t relevant to the problem I encountered.
It started out as a simple laptop review, and quickly devolved into an exercise in frustration. And as it turned out, it was all because of overly aggressive security imposed by an outside application.
Most laptops I’ve encountered have various forms of trialware installed – a 60 day trial for Microsoft Office is quite typical. In the good old days, you also used to get a one year subscription to some form of security software, most often just a simple antivirus program.
So I fired up the laptop, and was asked if I wanted to activate the 30-day trial for Trend Micro’s antivirus software. So I said yes, thinking nothing of it. If it had been my own laptop, I would have declined, since I have my own preferences for security apps. When I’m reviewing one, though, I usually say yes, wanting to check out how performance is affected.
Thinking nothing of that, I booted into the account I’d created. This particular laptop was running 32-bit Windows 7 Professional, so I diden’t expect any problems. Next up was to install applications from the Windows Home Server on the network. I brought up a window, typed the name of the server, preceded by double backslashes, and waited.
And waited.
Then the error popped up: Windows couldn’t find the system with that name. I checked a variety of things:
- Is file and print sharing turned on? Yes.
- Is the Windows firewall enabled? No.
- Did the system think it was on a domain instead of a workgroup? No.
I also checked the networking device control panel, and disabled IPv6. While most of my own systems have IPv6 enabled, I’ve found that some systems I bring into my lab don’t seem to connect if they have IPv6 enabled, for whatever reason. However, that didn’t help.
After a few email exchanges with support techs, they suggested that the problem might be a DNS issue. I had OpenDNS configured in my Netgear WNDR 3700, so I switched back to Comcast’s DNS. I also added a line to the HOSTS file on the laptop to specifically point to the Windows Home Server.
Still no connection to the WHS system.
The laptop did see other systems on my network. So I double-clicked on the icon that represented my production system, and got the same error. Just like the WHS system (which wasn’t seen at all by the laptop), my production system name wasn’t resolved.
Finally, I brought up the network device property panel one more time. That’s when I saw it: Trend Micro NDIS 6.0 Filter Driver.
Facepalm.
I had completely missed that in my first pass through the property sheet, since I was focused like a laser on disabling IPv6. When I did notice it this last time, it was instantly obvious to me that this was the problem. Call it an epiphany.
I uninstalled the Trend Micro filter driver and voila! My network was now completely accessible.
So thanks, Trend Micro, for causing me to waste an entire afternoon on a trivial problem! Now I can happily recommend that no one ever use your crappy application – or at least, never install the NDIS filter driver.
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3 comments
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Jay says:
August 2, 2010 at 12:36 pm (UTC -7 )
Lloyd, I completely understand your situation you had. I also have (somewhat recently) run into the exact same problem with Kaspersky Security Suite. It caused so many ridiculous problems. It wasn’t even funny. Once it was removed, all of my problems had been resolved. I don’t know what kind of testing they do with these apps, but it almost seems as if they are tested in unrealistic home & work environments. Like you, I highly recommend people to NEVER use Kaspersky nor Trend Micro(having heard similar issues with it too).
They lose out on so many customers because of such inconveniences that could easily be avoided with proper initial user configuration etc..
Garn says:
August 2, 2010 at 3:15 pm (UTC -7 )
I agree completely! It can be soooooo frustrating!
Vin says:
April 25, 2011 at 3:44 pm (UTC -7 )
Wouldn’t the NDIS driver be part of the Trend Micro firewall? It might ave been blocking NetBEUI or related ports. Still not a good thing to be doing.
Tweets that mention Stupid Networking Tricks in the Name of Security « All Topics « Improbable Insights -- Topsy.com says:
August 2, 2010 at 10:30 am (UTC -7 )
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by loydcase, Brent Cannon. Brent Cannon said: RT @loydcase: New blog post: http://tinyurl.com/2adtgu6 – Stupid Networking Tricks in the Name of Security [...]