Hello.
System: Windows XP Home
What is the proper way to install Thunderbird portable so a limited user can
use Thunderbird ?
I am experiencing the following difficulties after install as Admin, and as User.
1. Under a User account, Thunderbird will not remember 3rd party Firewall settings
(Comodo Firewall) it thinks Thunderbird is new each time. I am launching with
"Run As" administrator account.
2. If I launch Thunderbird without Run As administrator, a security warning pops up
and Thunderbird is locked.
Can someone please advise.
Thank you.
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can you (as admin) set the firewall to always allow Thunderbird? Or is it locked to a specific exe and path when you allow it and so it blocks it anew?
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
Hi,
I have the same issue with Windows 7 64, and for Thunderbird and Firefox :
- firewall defaults is to block outgoing connections
- one rule is set-up to allow PortableThunderbird
When I set the rule, everything is fine but the next day, when I plug my key again, PortableThunderbird is locked again (even if the rule is still here).
I would be interested in any help too because it forced me to allow outgoing connections by default to make things work.
Thank you.
Guillaume
Some software firewall products don't allow rules to be remembered for removable drives. Setting a drive letter manually so it never changes may or may not help.
Personally, I stopped using a software firewall set to warn about connections a long time ago and only have it set to warn about software attempting to setup an incoming connection to be listened on. It was overkill and the constant alerts were a bit pointless, since nearly every single piece of software has an updater built-in. Only warning for setting up incoming connections is the default for Windows' firewall and sufficient for most needs.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
In my case :
- MS Windows 7 firewall
- Constant letter Z: for my drive
- Firewall setup to block outgoing connections (not to warn me)
So, it apperars Windows 7 firewall does not apply rules on removable drives. Maybe it's time to try another one. Any sugggestions ?
Anyway, thank you again John for your support on this matter (unrelated to PortableApps :)).
To be more specific.
I've added both;
O:\ThunderbirdPortable\App\Thunderbird\thunderbird.exe
O:\ThunderbirdPortable\ThunderbirdPortable.exe
Firewall Rules work fine, but neither is remembered.
I'm running Thunderbird off a mounted Truecrypt Volume (O:)
as a User account. The Administrative account remembers the rules...
odd.
Feedback from the author...please ?
Your software firewall does not remember paths to removable drives. There's nothing we can do on our end to workaround this deficiency in the firewall software. You can either (1) set the firewall to work as Windows Firewall does and only alert on programs attempting to listen for incoming connections (which I do and recommend as the constant alerts on every software updating make the alerts useless noise to me); (2) re-setup the rules every single time; or (3) move it to a local drive. You should also contact your firewall vendor and let them know of the bug in their product.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Thank you for clearing this up John.
Can I install the portable Thunderbird to the Hard Disk, and edit the .ini file to point to the Removable drive?
It only accepts relative paths. I also tried a shortcut to the Data folder but it didn't like it.
Best regards.
You can have a locally installed Thunderbird (or even a locally-installed Thunderbird Portable) and point it to the Data directory on your removable drive using the command line option:
"C:\PathToThunderbird\thunderbird.exe" -profile "X:\PathToTBPortable\Data\profile"
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Please see this screen shot of Comodo Firewall...
http://kwamsook.com/pub/Comodo-Thunderbird.jpg
Question;
Thunderbird portable keeps both 'thunderbirdportable.exe' and 'thunderbird.exe' in memory.
Even if I allow full access to both, will the command;
"C:\PathToThunderbird\thunderbird.exe" -profile "X:\PathToTBPortable\Data\profile"
need to be adjusted/applied to 'both' processes ?
Thank you.
P.S. This is really frustrating.
I don't think any of us will know as this is a Comodo question. The thunderbird.exe process is the only one that will be making internet connections.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
if you are frustrated, then why do you still use such old software as comodo firewall which is basically making your system more insecure? Such 'firewalls' make system much more complex, introduce many unknown parts to very low central parts of the operating system and make system more complex , thus more vulnerable to many possible attacks.
Get rid of this security risk, it does not work anyway as you can see, and you will cure your frustration by this.
Windows has a firewall which is fine enough for what can be done at operating system level. Any further attempts to make more need to be done at server/router level, definitely not at the operating system level.
Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland