E-Volution IT

“Failed to read firewall configuration”

Getting this error when you run v3.x of NOD32 Antivirus? I was and it was tricky finding a solution. Here is what worked.

The Cause

I had installed NOD32 Security Suite by mistake. I uninstalled the Security Suite, restarted the computer, and then installed the Antivirus. Upon system startup NOD32 AV would give the “Failed to read firewall configuration” error. If I tried to go into the Setup it would also give the “Failed to read firewall configuration” error. I uninstalled, reinstalled, did repair installs, etc., and nothing got rid of this.

Hunting through the registry I found that NOD32 Security Suite had not uninstalled completely and had left a lot of data in the registry. Here’s the steps I went through to fix this error:

1. Uninstall NOD32 Antivirus
2. Reboot
3. Delete the folders at these locations:

   C:\Documents and Settings\YOURUSERNAME\Application Data\ESET
   C:\Documents and Settings\ALL USERS\Application Data\ESET

4. Check your network connection properties (usually Local Area Connection if you are on a LAN). Look to see if NOD32 Firewall is listed in the the “This connection uses the following items” on the General Tab. Uninstall it if it is.
5. Reboot. Reinstall NOD32. See if it works now.
6. If it still does not work then the final resort is the following steps
7. Uninstall NOD32 again
8. Get a good registry editing tool (perhaps a free one or one that gives a fully functional trial), backup your registry, save a system restore point, and then delete all lines in the registry that have “ESET” in them and which have “EPFW” [upper and lower case] (stands for “eset personal firewall”) in them. I deleted perhaps a hundred or more. I did not find any with “epfw” in them which were not Eset Firewall related. But you might, so check what you are deleting first.
9. Look for files in c:\windows\system32\drivers which have epfw at the beginning of the filename. There might be three or four. Delete them.

That should fix it.