Problem starting packed apps on HP laptops with McAfee

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SteveA
Posts: 8
Joined: Fri Aug 31, 2012 10:26 am

Problem starting packed apps on HP laptops with McAfee

Post by SteveA »

We have packed two virtual x86 apps with the following options set to ON:

Map executable files using temporary file
Share virtual system to child processes
Allow running of virtual executable files

We also set HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT as a virtual registry and compressed the package.

The problem we found was that after deploying the apps to several enterprise customers, all the customers who had HP laptops with McAfee installed (running 32bit Windows XP SP3) were unable to start the packed app when it was started from any other application/process. When the application was started directly it was able to run OK.

However we need the packed application to be able to run when it is started from another application.

Could this be a problem with McAfee or with some other HP security software that comes as standard on HP laptops? Unfortunately we can not ask our customer to disable McAfee as it is the enterprise version and users do not have the rights to change anything on their laptops. So are unable to run our application packed with Enigma Virtual Box. They were able to run the unpacked versions ok.

It is as if something is stopping any virtual/packed app from running if it was started by another process.

Have you heard of this problem before or do you have any ideas of how we can fix it for our enterprise customers that use HP laptops with McAfee?
Enigma
Site Admin
Posts: 2939
Joined: Wed Aug 20, 2008 2:24 pm

Re: Problem starting packed apps on HP laptops with McAfee

Post by Enigma »

Hi SteveA,

Very interesting issue. No, we did not have any complains about McAfee and issue running packed files.

Could the McAfee be an issue? yes/no. If the packed program runs well directly (antivirus does not affect it), then why it can't run inside another program?
Unfortunately, without testing of this issue would be difficult to say something. Can you please try to disable antivirus and run packed program under another, will it work? If it will, then yes, McAfee affects somehow.

If you disable antivirus and program still does not run, then probably, there are compatibility issues. Please make sure you are using the recent version of Enigma Virtual Box, because there were made some important improvements for better compatibility.

Also, to check the problem, I could send you a debug version of Enigma Virtual Box, the version that writes the execution log. So you will pack the file with this version, then reproduce the problem on user's PC and send me back debug files. It will help to see were the execution stops.
SteveA
Posts: 8
Joined: Fri Aug 31, 2012 10:26 am

Re: Problem starting packed apps on HP laptops with McAfee

Post by SteveA »

Thank you for the reply. We will try to investigate if the customer can disable McAfee to see if it helps but it is strange that the problem here only shows up when the packed exe is started from another process. The problem is that this being a large enterprise customer means that they have to pay their IT to do any such investigations and each user has no individual control over McAfee etc.

Note that we used enigma v5.70 for this customer release.

Below is a little more information about the application in case it helps.

It is a .NET 4.0 32 bit compiled application with an embedded 32 bit x86 ActiveX control.

The packed .exe is downloaded from our server application on to the MyDocuments folder of the client machines. We use this approach to deploy rich client updates easily when the server is updated. So we use a small client launcher application which connects to the server and then downloads the latest version of the packed client if it does not exist on the local client machine. The launcher then tries to start the packed application whether or not a new one needed to be downloaded.

That is why we need the packed application to be started by another application.

The launcher application is a .NET 4.0 application (not packed) and uses the .NET System.Diagnostics.Process.Start() function to start the downloaded packed exe.

We only experience this problem at this one customer site with the same software so far. For all other customers it worked OK with regards to this particular issue. The only thing we know to be different to the other customers so far is that they use McAfee.
masood11
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Aug 29, 2014 1:24 pm

Re: Problem starting packed apps on HP laptops with McAfee

Post by masood11 »

HP protect tools and start all over.HP and Mcafee to work out something between their home product and their corporate product so that to prevent this from happending. Anyone else had these woes?
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