Windows 2003 Server and ZoneAlarm do not mix
Posted by sharpstyle on August 26, 2007
ZomeAlarm installation warned me about running it on Server OS, but I didn’t listen and ended up with a computer that would never finish booting/loading — it would get to “starting…” screen and then reboot.
Had to go into Safe mode and uninstall ZoneAlaram. System booted w/o an issue.
Why was I trying to install “personal firewall” on a server OS? I was rebuilding my development machine and decided to use Win 2003 Server as OS for stability. I will have a separate post on that a little later.
Mike Grushin
Partner, CTO
PCSecurityExpert said
I faced same problem yesterday, with ZoneAlarm antispyware v7. It installed OK. But after reboot never reached login screen. At first I though of viruses and used Avira (from another OS partition), which found Vundo (OMG!), deleted it. But W2K3 still would not boot into desktop, just continuous restart, that’s all. Then I went to Safe Mode and uninstalled ZA antispyware from there, and Windows booted just as it always did.
Axel Roxel said
Only one version of zonealarm is compatible with Win2k3, and that is version/build 3.7.159, no less no more. Go around and try to locate a copy of this exact version, and it should work for you. For a good guide to convert/tweak Win2k3 server to an even nicer workstation go here: http://win2k3.msfn.org/
Other working personal firewalls (I’ve not verified this yet):
Norton Personal Firewall 2003
Sygate Personal Firewall v5.0 Build 1175
Tiny Personal Firewall 4.0
Adios amigos….