How do I kill Zone Alarm or prevent it from starting?

[Matt]

I'm running 98SE and Zone Alarm.

After installing new 98SE patches and a new Zone Alarm, I keep getting
message boxes saying the program has performed an illegal operation and
will be shut down. It says there is a page fault in vsdat.dll when
called by vsmon.exe and zlclient.exe, which are components of Zone Alarm.

The CPU is used 100%, and the system doesn't respond to ctrl-alt-del.

I try to delete the exe and dll files but can't because they are in use.

I don't know how to kill the task or somehow prevent it from starting at
boot time.

Please advise.

[Alan Edwards]

Do not delete files willy-nilly.
Uninstall it and reinstall it (or get a later version if yours is old)
Otherwise, disable it using Msconfig, though that will not solve your
problem.

....Alan

--
Alan Edwards, MS MVP W95/98 Systems
http://dts-l.org/index.html

In microsoft.public.win98.apps, Matt >
wrote:

>I'm running 98SE and Zone Alarm.
>
>After installing new 98SE patches and a new Zone Alarm, I keep getting
>message boxes saying the program has performed an illegal operation and
>will be shut down. It says there is a page fault in vsdat.dll when
>called by vsmon.exe and zlclient.exe, which are components of Zone Alarm.
>
>The CPU is used 100%, and the system doesn't respond to ctrl-alt-del.
>
>I try to delete the exe and dll files but can't because they are in use.
>
>I don't know how to kill the task or somehow prevent it from starting at
>boot time.
>
>Please advise.

[Matt]

Alan Edwards wrote:
> Do not delete files willy-nilly.
> Uninstall it and reinstall it (or get a later version if yours is old)
> Otherwise, disable it using Msconfig, though that will not solve your
> problem.
>
> ...Alan
>

I want to uninstall Zone Alarm anyway, and I know the exe files belong
to ZA, and I am not deleting the ZA uninstall.exe, so I guess I should
be okay. The uninstall.exe won't work now, though, because ZA is running.

So I need to either prevent it from starting at boot or kill it once it
starts. I suppose there is a file somewhere that tells the system to
run ZA upon boot, but I don't know where that is. Any clues?

[Alan Edwards]

The uninstall should work, despite it running, assuming you have not
deleted any files like zauninst.exe.
Uninstall it via Add/Remove and it should stop running after the next
boot.
The running can be disabled by Msconfig (as already indicated) but
that should not be necessary.
If you must go down that path, then:
Start-Run-Msconfig-Startup tab.

....Alan

--
Alan Edwards, MS MVP W95/98 Systems
http://dts-l.org/index.html

In microsoft.public.win98.apps, Matt >
wrote:

>Alan Edwards wrote:
>> Do not delete files willy-nilly.
>> Uninstall it and reinstall it (or get a later version if yours is old)
>> Otherwise, disable it using Msconfig, though that will not solve your
>> problem.
>>
>> ...Alan
>>
>
>I want to uninstall Zone Alarm anyway, and I know the exe files belong
>to ZA, and I am not deleting the ZA uninstall.exe, so I guess I should
>be okay. The uninstall.exe won't work now, though, because ZA is running.
>
>So I need to either prevent it from starting at boot or kill it once it
>starts. I suppose there is a file somewhere that tells the system to
>run ZA upon boot, but I don't know where that is. Any clues?

[kimbo_]

Hi, open the ZoneAlarm Control Centre then click on Overview then Prefrences
tab, in the genral section uncheck "load zonealarm at startup.
Regards
Kim

"Matt" > wrote in message
...
> I'm running 98SE and Zone Alarm.
>
> After installing new 98SE patches and a new Zone Alarm, I keep getting
> message boxes saying the program has performed an illegal operation and
> will be shut down. It says there is a page fault in vsdat.dll when
> called by vsmon.exe and zlclient.exe, which are components of Zone Alarm.
>
> The CPU is used 100%, and the system doesn't respond to ctrl-alt-del.
>
> I try to delete the exe and dll files but can't because they are in use.
>
> I don't know how to kill the task or somehow prevent it from starting at
> boot time.
>
> Please advise.
>

[Lil' Dave]

ZA is easy to shutdown or prevent loading at startup. My PC has no
"vsdat.dll" file on the "c:\" drive, running Pro version. There is a
"vsdata.dll". This may be the source of your problem. Suggest you
uninstall using the ZA uninstall on its menu. Then, reinstall. You need a
firewall.
"Matt" > wrote in message
...
> I'm running 98SE and Zone Alarm.
>
> After installing new 98SE patches and a new Zone Alarm, I keep getting
> message boxes saying the program has performed an illegal operation and
> will be shut down. It says there is a page fault in vsdat.dll when
> called by vsmon.exe and zlclient.exe, which are components of Zone Alarm.
>
> The CPU is used 100%, and the system doesn't respond to ctrl-alt-del.
>
> I try to delete the exe and dll files but can't because they are in use.
>
> I don't know how to kill the task or somehow prevent it from starting at
> boot time.
>
> Please advise.
>

[Matt]

Lil' Dave wrote:
> ZA is easy to shutdown or prevent loading at startup. My PC has no
> "vsdat.dll" file on the "c:\" drive, running Pro version. There is a
> "vsdata.dll". This may be the source of your problem. Suggest you
> uninstall using the ZA uninstall on its menu. Then, reinstall. You need a
> firewall.
> "Matt" > wrote in message
> ...
>
>>I'm running 98SE and Zone Alarm.
>>
>>After installing new 98SE patches and a new Zone Alarm, I keep getting
>>message boxes saying the program has performed an illegal operation and
>>will be shut down. It says there is a page fault in vsdat.dll when
>>called by vsmon.exe and zlclient.exe, which are components of Zone Alarm.
>>
>>The CPU is used 100%, and the system doesn't respond to ctrl-alt-del.
>>
>>I try to delete the exe and dll files but can't because they are in use.
>>
>>I don't know how to kill the task or somehow prevent it from starting at
>>boot time.
>>
>>Please advise.
>>

Sorry for misspelling vsdata.dll.

Yes, that seems to be the problem. Apparently vsdata.dll is page
faulting when called by other programs, including the ZA uninstaller.
Then I guess it goes by chance into a do-nothing loop that uses up the
CPU. It doesn't respond to ctrl-alt-del when I try to kill it, yet I
can run other programs even though they run slow.

I was able to use msconfig to prevent ZA from starting, but now I can't
uninstall ZA.

[Lil' Dave]

I won't go any further with personal advice.

Try
http://www.zonelabs.com/forum
http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/support/znalmMain.jsp

"Matt" > wrote in message
...
> Lil' Dave wrote:
> > ZA is easy to shutdown or prevent loading at startup. My PC has no
> > "vsdat.dll" file on the "c:\" drive, running Pro version. There is a
> > "vsdata.dll". This may be the source of your problem. Suggest you
> > uninstall using the ZA uninstall on its menu. Then, reinstall. You
need a
> > firewall.
> > "Matt" > wrote in message
> > ...
> >
> >>I'm running 98SE and Zone Alarm.
> >>
> >>After installing new 98SE patches and a new Zone Alarm, I keep getting
> >>message boxes saying the program has performed an illegal operation and
> >>will be shut down. It says there is a page fault in vsdat.dll when
> >>called by vsmon.exe and zlclient.exe, which are components of Zone
Alarm.
> >>
> >>The CPU is used 100%, and the system doesn't respond to ctrl-alt-del.
> >>
> >>I try to delete the exe and dll files but can't because they are in use.
> >>
> >>I don't know how to kill the task or somehow prevent it from starting at
> >>boot time.
> >>
> >>Please advise.
> >>
>
> Sorry for misspelling vsdata.dll.
>
> Yes, that seems to be the problem. Apparently vsdata.dll is page
> faulting when called by other programs, including the ZA uninstaller.
> Then I guess it goes by chance into a do-nothing loop that uses up the
> CPU. It doesn't respond to ctrl-alt-del when I try to kill it, yet I
> can run other programs even though they run slow.
>
> I was able to use msconfig to prevent ZA from starting, but now I can't
> uninstall ZA.
>
>
>

[NJSG]

> The CPU is used 100%, and the system doesn't respond to ctrl-alt-del.

When do you press ctrl-alt-del, when the error message is on the screen?
Windows 98 doesn't show the "Close Program" dialog if any error message
is on the screen! (Bad idea, Microsoft!)

Nuno Silva (aka NJSG)


Matt wrote:
> I'm running 98SE and Zone Alarm.
>
> After installing new 98SE patches and a new Zone Alarm, I keep getting
> message boxes saying the program has performed an illegal operation and
> will be shut down. It says there is a page fault in vsdat.dll when
> called by vsmon.exe and zlclient.exe, which are components of Zone Alarm.
>
> The CPU is used 100%, and the system doesn't respond to ctrl-alt-del.
>
> I try to delete the exe and dll files but can't because they are in use.
>
> I don't know how to kill the task or somehow prevent it from starting at
> boot time.
>
> Please advise.
>

[Dave]

Start > Run > Type msconfig > Startup tab. Remove the
ticks from everything to do with ZoneAlarm, and reboot
your PC.

If you can't get into the normal version of Windows,
rebooot your PC. Just before the 98 splash screen comes
on, press F8 on your keyboard, then select Safe Mode.


>-----Original Message-----
>I'm running 98SE and Zone Alarm.
>
>After installing new 98SE patches and a new Zone Alarm,
I keep getting
>message boxes saying the program has performed an
illegal operation and
>will be shut down. It says there is a page fault in
vsdat.dll when
>called by vsmon.exe and zlclient.exe, which are
components of Zone Alarm.
>
>The CPU is used 100%, and the system doesn't respond to
ctrl-alt-del.
>
>I try to delete the exe and dll files but can't because
they are in use.
>
>I don't know how to kill the task or somehow prevent it
from starting at
>boot time.
>
>Please advise.
>
>.
>