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dth1971
Former Member
Message 1 of 23

Network Discovery and Media Sharing Problems-Lost me as a customer

I am sad to report that you have lost me as a long time and repeat customer.  (10+ years)  I am done with you McAfee.  I am a network programmer to boot.  I have been wrestling with this problem for 2 days and your tech support was useless.

The Problems

You have never ever managed to get simple media and file sharing to work correctly with your firewall.  Also you break network discovery.  This means other networked devices can not see my computer on the network.

I first saw this problem 4 years ago on XP.  I managed to work around it.  I manually added the ports necessary to share them after fishing around in microsoft support database.

I saw the problem again on Vista

Then I reinstalled Vista from the gound up.  Same problem

Then I installed it on my wife's Windows 7 laptop.  She has the same problem

But until Firewall Version 11, I have always been able to work around it.

I have been wrestling with trying to get network discovery to work for 2 days.  I know it's your product because when I turn off your firewall, everything works.  It works fine with security essentials (which is free from microsoft)   I am checking the log for incoming request and outgoing request and I'm NOT seeing anything odd.

Why this is a critical flaw in your product

Network discovery is an absolutely basic and critical function.  Media sharing is a basic function also.  How you guys managed not to see this problem for 4 years is beyond me.  A computer needs to have the ability to broadcast "I'm here" so other devices can connect to it.

This means other computers can not share files, or stream music, or stream movies.  I can no longer stream music from my computer to my XBox360.  I can no longer stream music directly to my networked stereo receiver (Yamaha RX-Z11).  I can no longer stream movies to my TiVO or sling boxes.   The only way I can do this is if I take down your firewall.  And a firewall is useless if it's down 100% of the time.

If a highly educated computer professional like me who fights with your product for two days can't fix the problem (even with your tech support) what's the average computer user supposed to do?

Here's the information of your product:

McAfee SecurityCenter Version 10.0

Build: 10.0.580

Last update: 5/11/2010

McAfee Personal Firewall

Version: 11.0

Build: 11.0.378

Last Update: 5/11/2010

BTW: Your last auto update which updated me from SecurityCenter Version 9 to 10, hosed my Windows Vista system with lockups on startup.  I had to do a safe mode rollback and uninstall your old product, and redownload everything.

22 Replies
urganda
Former Member
Message 2 of 23

Re: Network Discovery and Media Sharing Problems-Lost me as a customer

I agree with you. I was happy with Internet Security 2007, and even with Internet Security 2008, since they were easier to configure than Kaspersky. But Internet Security 2010 lacks a simple method to fine-tune security (i.e. I want a simple method to do useful things, not a simple method to do useless things).

This is the first time I run a qemu host after upgrading to Internet Security 2010, and I *CAN'T* allow network access to it... It worked fine with Internet Security 2009, but now:

- NetBIOS ports config has changed to "closed" (even for trusted home computers) suddenly.

- Opening NetBIOS ports in the firewall does not work.

- The main, viruscan-protected computer can see the other computer, but the other computer can't see the viruscan-protected computer.

- I haven't tested yet with real computers not protected with VirusScan, but I guess I will experience similar touble.

Please notice that allowing connections for Virusscan protected computers only is a pain in the ass. I need some external users, using laptops protected with other antivirus software, having access to some shared folders from time to time. I can't manage to spent 2 hours trying to reconfigure the firewall for them to work, neither can I manage to leave the firewall open.

I am the owner of SIX licenses, and I want a solution for this to work...

El mensaje fue editado por: urganda on 16/05/10 5:49:55 CDT
exbrit
MVP
MVP
Message 3 of 23

Re: Network Discovery and Media Sharing Problems-Lost me as a customer

I'll flag this in an effort to get someone knowledgeable about network to answer you.

terra-
Former Member
Message 4 of 23

Re: Network Discovery and Media Sharing Problems-Lost me as a customer

I have also spents days trying to figure out why half my machines wont recognize my network media and drives. McAfee....PLEASE fix this.

exbrit
MVP
MVP
Message 5 of 23

Re: Network Discovery and Media Sharing Problems-Lost me as a customer

Network discovery is primarily a Windows function so McAfee has reduced the network functions in the home product to the minimum.  You mention "half my machines".....this is the Home Product area and it sounds to me like you are using Enterprise which has excellent online support.

All of you can contact Tecnical Support Chat which for the home products is under Useful Links above and for business products under McAfee Support above (Corporate Service Portal).

urganda
Former Member
Message 6 of 23

Re: Network Discovery and Media Sharing Problems-Lost me as a customer

Hi.

I'm sorry for calling your attention about this old post, but I still experiment the same issue, even after contacting a McAffee Technician.

I've read carefully the help file. It seems if you use McAfee firewall, you can trust computers using McAfee only (in order to trust a computer, you have to send an invitation which is reported by a mcaffee client running on that computer. That was the way mcaffee easy network worked on internet security 2008, and it seems it has been promoted to a "compulsory component" in mcafee 2010).

If you open a port for home networks only, you are opening it for trusted computers in that network. And, since you can only trust McAfee computers, you can either:

- close your ports,

- open your ports to all computers on all networks or

- open your ports to trusted computers running mcaffee 2010 on your home / workplace network.

It means you can't invite your neighbour to share a document folder with you when visiting your home.

It means also you can't invite your linux-based portable, or your vnc-client, or your too-old-to-run-mcaffee computer to your network, even without writing rights.

It does not seem a good scheme for providing security, since it encourages users to use "backdoor" techniques, such as running VNC (remote desktop and video sharing are blocked, but VNC is not), running alternatives to NetBeui, or downloading "networking helper" programs that could contain trojan horses. It is simply a solution as rough as the "HomeGroup" in Vista (or is it 7?), a workaround for people so dumb they share everything and don't have an Admin password.

In the other hand, the need to have McAfee in all computers is not available for people that have spare computers too old to meet the memory requirements for the last mcaffee version, but usable as file servers or children computers.

I'm thinking seriously on stopping my use of mcaffee and turn into clam or something else I can use in all my computers (the old ones and the new ones).

P.S. In the main window, mcafee displays the status of Home Network as "active". Does it mean there is a way to uninstall/deactivate the network manager component?

exbrit
MVP
MVP
Message 7 of 23

Re: Network Discovery and Media Sharing Problems-Lost me as a customer

I'm none too technical about this, hence my recommendation to contact Tech. Support.  I do know however that you can't uninstall just the network part.  If you don't want it to bother you simply tell it not to trust the network and it will fade into the background so to speak.

That action wont disable any part of it.

Regarding trusting I believe you are correct in saying that the other machines must have McAfee installed.  However there is no need to open or close ports, SecurityCenter does all that automatically.

urganda
Former Member
Message 8 of 23

Re: Network Discovery and Media Sharing Problems-Lost me as a customer

Well, as dth1971 says, I can't use a firewall that blocks non-mcafee computers.

I am using mcafee since 2003. I have 6 licenses from 2006. Some of my computers are going to loss mcafee next year (they can't use XP SP3, so they can't use mcafee 2010).

So next year I won't renew any of my six licenses. Bye, McAfee, bye.

exbrit
MVP
MVP
Message 9 of 23

Re: Network Discovery and Media Sharing Problems-Lost me as a customer

It shouldn't be blocking anything unless you tell it to by marking something as an intruder.  All the Network module should be doing is attempting to identify other machines/gadgets in the network.

dth1971
Former Member
Message 10 of 23

Re: Network Discovery and Media Sharing Problems-Lost me as a customer

The solution should have been obvious to mcafee.  You can go to the network viewer and mark the various types of network devices.   Like multimedia device, or gaming machine.  These machines obviously are not going to contain any viruses.  So access should be granted to them.  But I guess that makes too much sense.  It seems the network viewer can't even store what ip is what type of network device.  Whenever I restart my machine and go back in to the network viewer it loses all these settings.  Therefore I have no clue what this screen is for.

Nothing personal, but mcafee really has their head in the sand on this one.  That or they just don't care.

my 3 user license expired in May.  And I haven't renewed it.

Message was edited by: dth1971 on 7/3/10 3:46:27 PM CDT
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