February 8th, 2012· Fixed bug where version information did not get extracted from some files.
· Added additional companies to FreeFixer's green list: AVAST Software, Broadcom Corporation, BullGuard Ltd., Canon Inc., Duplex Secure Ltd, Google Inc, Hewlett Packard, Lavasoft Limited, Lenovo(Japan)Ltd., Marvell Semiconductor, O and O Software GmbH, Paragon Software GmbH, Paragon Technologie GmbH, RealNetworks, Inc.
October 17th, 2011· FreeFixer now runs on the Windows 8 Developer Preview.
· Improved the error message when FreeFixer's file unlocker fails to duplicate a file handle. The error message now includes the path of the file and the process id of the owning process.
· Fixed bug where the system error messages did not always end with a period (.).
August 8th, 2011· FreeFixer now scans the Csrss.exe virtual memory.
· The upload file size limit has been increased from 1 MB to 1.5 MB.
May 17th, 2010· Added a tools tab with the "File Nuker" and "System File Checker" tools. File Nuker allows the user to manually register a file for on-reboot removal. System File Checker is Microsoft's tool that verifies the integrity and authenticity of the system files.
· FreeFixer now scans the modules loaded into Internet Explorer.
· The upload file size limit has been increased from 800K to 1MB.
· Fixed minor bug in FreeFixer's code that verifies digital signatures. The bug caused the following error message to be reported for some non-signed files: Failed to calculate hash for 'c:\..\file.exe' using 'CryptCATAdminCalcHashFromFileHandle' while verifying trust. System error message: The parameter is incorrect. Error code: 87.
April 28th, 2010· FreeFixer now supports 64-bit windows.
· The upload file size limit has been increased from 500K to 800K.
· Progress is now updated more frequently while uploading files.
· Fixed race-condition that under some conditions caused FreeFixer to block after cancelling a file upload.
· Added Donate tab.
April 21st, 2010· FreeFixer now shows a progress dialog when clicking the "more info" links. This will improve the responsiveness when the application is configured to upload files.
· The upload file size limit has been increased from 200K to 500K.
· Added setting to enable/disable file uploads.
· All settings in the settings tab are now linked to the manual where they are described in more detail.
April 8th, 2010· FreeFixer will now upload files to the freefixer.com server when a user clicks the "more info" links in the scan result. The file will be stored on the freefixer.com server and later uploaded to VirusTotal.com. When the scan result from VirusTotal is available a summary is added on the file's information page showing how many of the anti-virus scanners reported the file as infected. The scan result will usually be available in 5-15 minutes after clicking the more info link. To begin with, only files smaller than 200K will be uploaded to keep a light load on the servers. Once this new upload feature has been thoroughly tested and tuned I'll increase the size limit.
March 10th, 2010· FreeFixer now scans Winlogon.exe modules.
· Minor updates to the code to support the upcoming 64-bit version of FreeFixer.
February 8th, 2010· FreeFixer now scans Svchost.exe modules, Dllhost.exe modules, Mshta.exe modules, Explorer.exe modules and Rundll modules.
· Fixed a minor issue which under some conditions prevented FreeFixer from unlocking files opened in an exclusive mode by other processes.
January 25th, 2010· FreeFixer now scans Autorun.inf files.
· FreeFixer will now check the NoChangingWallpaper, NoActiveDesktopChanges, NoSetActiveDesktop and Wallpaper settings.
· FreeFixer no longer checks for the WSPStartup and NSPStartup exports while deleting dynamic link libraries. This was previously used to identify transport and namespace service provider and prevent deletion of these library since it could break the Internet connection. However, since FreeFixer can remove missing transport and namespace service providers from the provider chain this check is no longer needed.
· If a missing transport or namespace service provider .DLL is identified, FreeFixer reports that removing the missing provider can repair a broken Internet connection.
· Files identified as a UserInit will only have a delete checkbox when presented under the UserInit section of the scan result. This will allow FreeFixer to properly restore the UserInit registry value if necessary.
January 11th, 2010· FreeFixer now scans the Windows Security providers.
· FreeFixer will now ask the user to upload a crash dump when an assertion fails. Previously the assertion message was displayed in a message box. This change will be of great help to track down remaining defects in the FreeFixer application.
· Fixed a bug where FreeFixer halted the scan with an assertion message saying string(value.get()).size() == valueSize, when trying to enumerate a registry value with an embedded ASCII 0.
· Fixed a minor issue where FreeFixer halted the scan with the following assertion failed message: _key != 0. This problem only appeared on systems infected with a particular rootkit that was hooking the Windows Registry functions.
December 10th, 2009· FreeFixer will now check if there's a settings.txt file located in the same directory as freefixer.exe. If so, that settings file will be used instead of C:Documents and Settings\%USERNAME%Application DataFreeFixersettings.txt. This feature is added to better support FreeFixer as a portable application. Now you can put FreeFixer on your USB stick and all settings will be loaded and saved to the USB.
· FreeFixer now opens the default browser instead of Internet Explorer when clicking the "more info" links in the scan result.
· Added the following companies to the trusted list. Files signed by these companies will appear greenlisted in FreeFixer scan result: AT&T Services, Inc., ATI Technologies, Inc, Agnitum Ltd., Authentium, Inc., Authentium, inc, Autodesk, Inc, BITDEFENDER LLC, BillP Studios, BitTorrent Inc, Blizzard Entertainment, Cisco Systems, Inc., Cisco-Linksys LLC, Citrix Systems, Inc, Comodo Security Solutions, Comodo Security Solutions, Inc., Computer Associates International, Creative Labs Inc, Dell Inc, Dell Inc., Dell Incorporated, Doctor Web Ltd., Hewlett-Packard, InstallShield Software Corporation, Lenovo (United States) Inc., Lexmark International, Inc., Macromedia, Inc., Malwarebytes Corporation, Microsoft Corporation MSN, Microsoft Windows 2000 Publisher, Motorola, NVIDIA Corporation, National Instruments Corporation, Nero AG, Nitro PDF Software, Nokia, Norman ASA, Opera Software ASA, PGP Corporation, Panda Security S.L, Panda Software International, Prevx, Raxco Software, Inc., Secunia, Sony Corporation, Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB, Sophos Plc, Spotify Ltd, Synaptics Incorporated, Sysinternals, TOSHIBA CORPORATION, TeamViewer GmbH, Valve, WinZip Computing and Zone Labs, Inc.
· FreeFixer will now add c:windowssystem32userinit.exe, to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersionWinlogon, UserInit, if it is missing, while removing unwanted programs from the UserInit startup location.
· Fixed a minor bug in the history section of the FreeFixer log, where an extra carriage return was added between the items.
· Version information is now added to the freefixersetup.exe file.
· The installer no longer shows language options.
November 11th, 2009· FreeFixer now tracks the changes it does to the registry and file deletions. These changes are reported in the end of the FreeFixer log, located under 'History'.
· Added settings to enable and disable scan locations.
· FreeFixer now adds End of FreeFixer log to clearly show where the log file ends.
· FreeFixer now ignores NTFS reparse points when scanning recently modified or created files. This fixes three issues: 1) where FreeFixer never finished the scan when running into a drive that has itself mounted. For example, if C: had been mounted into C:mydrive. 2) where scanning of recently modified or created files moved on to scan files that were not really on any of the system's fixed drives. 3) where FreeFixer reported an access denied message (on Windows Vista/2008/7) for some reparse points, such as Problems opening folder 'c:Documents and Settings' to enumerate files. System error message: Access is denied. Error code: 5.
· Fixed a bug in FreeFixer's icon extraction code which could result in reading inaccessible memory when extracting an icon from a malformed executable file.
· Fixed a bug in FreeFixers's scan for recently modified or created files which under some conditions never finished. This could occur when the FindNextFile API failed with another error code than ERROR_NO_MORE_FILES.
October 24th, 2009· FreeFixer now support third-party definitions to detect malware.
· Many small improvements throughout the codebase to properly handle low memory conditions.
· FreeFixer now uses EnumProcesses instead of CreateToolhelp32Snapshot, Process32First and Process32Next to enumerate processes.
September 28th, 2009· FreeFixer now scans the Shell settings.
· Fixed a bug where FreeFixer in some cases did not do complete bounds-checking while extracting export names from dynamic link libraries. This bug could under some conditions cause FreeFixer to crash.
· FreeFixer's crash dumps now include the version number in the file name.
September 17th, 2009· Fixed a number of bugs in FreeFixer's parsing and extraction of icons from scanned executables.
September 9th, 2009· FreeFixer now catches critical errors in the application and offers the possibility to send a dump file to the freefixer.com server. This will be of great help while identifying and fixing remaining defects in the FreeFixer application.
· Fixed a bug where FreeFixer failed to enumerate the system's page files on Windows 2000. FreeFixer failed during startup with the following error message: The Procedure entry point EnumPageFilesA could not be located in the dynamic link library PSAPI.DLL.
· Fixed a minor bug which appeared when FreeFixer scanned a file of zero bytes size. The bug caused the following error message to appeared in the scan result: Failed to calculate hash for '%FILENAME%' using 'CryptCATAdminCalcHashFromFileHandle' while verifying trust. System error message: The volume for a file has been externally altered so that the opened file is no longer valid. Error code: 1006.
August 18th, 2009· Added a settings tab in FreeFixer's user interface.
· Added setting to optionally add the MD5 or SHA256 hash to the FreeFixer log. This will improve the collaboration possibilities with third party developers. By default, hashes are not included in the log.
· Settings are now saved on disk in "C:Documents and Settings\%USERNAME%Application DataFreeFixer", instead of the Windows Registry.
· Fixed a bug where FreeFixer did not remember the dialog size and position between runs.
· Fixed a minor formatting bug in the FreeFixer log.
· Fixed a minor bug where the whitelist report number was incorrect for the "AppInit_DLLs" and "Suspicious file names" in the FreeFixer log.
· Fixed a minor problem where some errors that appeared in the user interface code was not reported to the user.
July 22nd, 2009· Fixed a bug which sometimes halted the scan for recently modified or created files with the assertion message "strlen(startdir)
July 14th, 2009· FreeFixer now scans the most recently created or modified files and Mozilla Firefox extensions.
· Fixed a minor bug where the file unlocker under some conditions did not always get called. This could result in a message saying The process cannot access the file because another process has locked a portion of the file.
June 29th, 2009· FreeFixer now scans the Windows XP Firewall Authorized Applications.
· FreeFixer can now unlock files that are locked by another process. This feature is used when FreeFixer runs into a file which cannot be read. FreeFixer then closes all handles in the process that locks or has opened the file in an exclusive mode. This should reduce or completely eliminate errors saying: "The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process."
· The AppInit_DLL plugin and the Suspicious file names plugin now show the number of whitelisted items in the log file.
· Fixed a bug on the FreeFixer web site where searching for the CustomizeSearch and SearchAssistant Internet Explorer settings, resulted in an error message saying "Insufficient input".
· Fixed a minor issue where the scan result gave an incorrect number of whitelisted drivers.
May 29th, 2009· Fixed a severe flaw in the malware removal code which under some circumstances could cause another item than the one the user selected to be removed. Many thanks to Mr Mita for reporting in this problem.
May 11th, 2009· FreeFixer now supports Windows 7 RC1.
· FreeFixer now correctly displays file and registry information for all languages in both the log file and the scan result. Characters from languages such as Russian, Chinese, Hindi, Arabic and Japanese should no longer cause any problems.
· The FreeFixer.com web site and FreeFixer file database now correctly handle characters from all languages.
· Added glossary item for Vendor and version information.
· Fixed a bug where some whitelisted files did not appear as whitelisted in the scan result.
· Fixed minor issue where whitespace BootExecute items appeared in the scan result.
· FreeFixer now correctly sets the locale. This fixed a bug that could halt the program before showing the scan result with the error message: An error occurred when trying to open the file for writing. Filename: 'C:Documents and Settings\%USERNAME%Local SettingsApplication DataFreeFixericons\%MD5%.ico'.
· Fixed bug where FreeFixer did not check revocation lists while verifying certificate chains for files with embedded certificates.
April 21st, 2009· FreeFixer will now whitelist files from trusted software publishers, such Microsoft, Kaspersky, Symantec, TrendMicro, etc. The trusted files will appear with a green background in the scan result without the delete option. Trusted files will not appear in the FreeFixer log, in order to reduce the noise and simplify inspection of the logs.
· The Start Page http://www.microsoft.com/ is now whitelisted and will no appear in the scan result.
March 28th, 2009· Fixed bug in the user interface HTML generator and log generation code that could result in the error message "Cannot convert registry data of the REGISTRY_DATA_INVALID type to a string". This error could appeared under some conditions when FreeFixer failing to read a registry key.
March 25th, 2009· FreeFixer now verifies the digital signature for all files in the scan result. It also checks that the certificate chains ends in a trusted root. See Dwm.exe and VMwareTray.exe as an example of two legitimate files with a valid digital signature. The signature information on the FreeFixer web site is now continuously updated when users press the "more info" link in the scan result.
· FreeFixer now starts automatically after finishing the installer.
March 10th, 2009· FreeFixer now scans the BootExecute registry setting.
· FreeFixer now supports Windows Server 2008
· Fixed bug in UserInit plugin where FreeFoxer did not determine full path for userinit specified as filename only.
· The Start Page "res://iesetup.dll/HardAdmin.htm" is now whitelisted and will no appear in the scan result.
February 23rd, 2009· FreeFixer now supports Windows Vista 32-bit
· FreeFixer now displays the full path of the AppInit_DLLs in the FreeFixer log.
February 13th, 2009· Fixed bug where FreeFixer was unable to modify a read-only HOSTS file.
February 2nd, 2009· Fixed bug where FreeFixer was unable to extract properties from files lacking a translation table. The error message Error getting translation table with 'VerQueryValue'.. should no longer appear when FreeFixer scan this type of file.
· Disabled the Hidden Process plugin for users running FreeFixer on a 64-bit platform. This will be enabled again as soon as I have located and fixed a bug in this plugin that interrupts the scan.
January 22nd, 2009· FreeFixer now scans the Shell Service registry setting.
· To reduce the noice in the log file, FreeFixer now ignores URLs pointing to http://go.microsoft.com for the Start Page, Search Page, Default_Page_URL and Default_Search_URL registry settings.
January 13th, 2009· FreeFixer now scans the NtLoad Startups registry setting.
January 6th, 2009· Fixed a defect where FreeFixer sometimes stopped during scan with the error message: Assertion failed. Message: bitmapSize == SizeofResource(dll.getModule(), hRsrc). This occurred when scanning a file with a malformed icon resource.
February 12th, 2008· FreeFixer now scans the SharedSchedulers setting.
November 15th, 2007· FreeFixer now scans the UserInit setting.
· FreeFixer now use the common names for the operating systems when generating a log file. For example, Windows XP is used instead of Windows NT 5.1.
· Service pack number is now listed in the log file.
November 11th, 2007· Experimental support for Windows Vista. Support for the new IPv6 format the HOSTS file. FreeFixer now puts a more reasonable size on its window when it is launched for the first time. Fixed an bug where FreeFixer sometimes failed to terminate multi value strings (REG_MULTI_SZ).
October 15th, 2007· FreeFixer now scans the Namespace service providers and Transport service providers.
· Fixed a defect where FreeFixer sometimes halted its scan when reading information from malware dynamic link libraries.
October 1st, 2007· FreeFixer now scans the TCP/IP settings.
· Fixed a defect in the code that reads file properties. The defect made FreeFixer stop with the message Assertion failed. Message: cbTranslate >= 4.
· Fixed a problem in FreeFixer's code that reads the registry. The bug made FreeFixer stop with the message Assertion failed. Message: lastInBuf == 0.
September 7th, 2007· FreeFixer now scans the services installed on the system.
· FreeFixer now checks the wallpaper system policy.
August 17th, 2007· Fixed a defect where an error message was displayed when an Internet Explorer toolbar specified a CLSID which did not exists under 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREClassesCLSID'.
· Fixed a number of problems related to scanning with a limited user account.
· FreeFixer no longer halt the process and hidden process scan if a problem occur while extracting information from one of the processes.
June 5th, 2007· FreeFixer now scans drivers installed on the system.
· Fixed a defect which under some conditions halted the scan of the autostart shortcuts, with an error messages saying Assertion failed. Message: initialDirectory != ""
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