DELL PCTUNEUP SAYS FSECURE FIREWALL NOT WORKING WHEN IT IS!

Hi QUERIOUS, and welcome to the forum:

We see a lot of problems with PC TuneUp on these boards, and a lot of opinions that it is unreliable, mine included. It does nothing you can't do manually.

If F-Secure support has checked, and says its firewall is working, I would trust them, and just ignore PC TuneUp.

Just out of interest, what does your Security Center (in Control Panel) say about your firewall protection?

I would uninstall PC TuneUp (in fact I did after trialling it a some time ago).

Others more knowledgeable than I agree:
http://www.vistax64.com/vista-performance-maintenance/112674-windows-vista-vs-dell-pc-tuneup.html

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly. It's reassuring to read that link.

To think I paid for this - what a numpty!

I have little confidence Dell will refund me either. I am already sick of their customer service and I've only had the machine 2 days.

A slight aside ... talking of removing programs... I notice my new pc has visual C++ on it... what is this used for exactly cos my old Evesham Xp definitely didn't have it. Is it one to leave on there or remove? Thanks!

I'm assuming what you have is the visual c++ RUNTIME components ("redistributable package").    This allows programs on your PC, that were written in the C++ language, to run on your system.   If you remove this, then any programs on your system that try to access this "library" will be broken.    In other words, leave it alone.

Thanks for replying - yes 3 x redistributable installations. Just wondering what exactly is using them because this is a new clean pc - I have installed nothing myself yet and my old XP one didn't have these files - are they there for Dell Tuneup I wondered or does everybody have these now to run Vista or something?

Thanks

(Just trying to clean up my pc from unecessary stuff from Dell before I start using it!)

So what I'm trying to get at is...are the Visual C++ (redistributable) programs necessary or not ? Is this a DELL specific thing or does everyone have them on their pc to run something key?

Were they installed just for PCTools to work or are they necessary for something else on a clean pc to run (ie Vista). Do all of you out there running Vista have them?

Other possibilities - are they there to run the free but unwanted 2GB online backup service for example (that i'm going to delete cos 2 GB is useless!)

I think what ky331 was referring to are any programs you might load in the future that might use this computer language would be affected. All computers come with preloaded programs that we may never use and we can either ignore or delete them. Anything that pertains to the system and its processes is a whole other matter and best left alone. Not sure if the component in question is one of those or a stand alone program. When in doubt, do what you did and ask about it.

Yes I know Visual C++ isn't itself just a DELL thing. What I'm trying to ask is do people with non DELL pcs have it pre-installed when they arrive or was it installed by DELL to run some of their specific DELL software which I am now deleting?

Perhaps this is better asked on a non-DELL swite as I guess everyone on here only runs DELLs. Would be interested if anyone else here can comment whether it is on their DELL machines too though.

What i would like to know is do pcs running Vista from other manufacturers have in preinstalled - is it needed to run Vista perhaps?

I don't have any apps on there yet - not even MS office. Just an empty pc running Vista with DELL PC tools and DELL online backup and my antivirus - which doesn't use it.

Visual C++ is NOT merely a "DELL" thing, it comes from Microsoft.   The latest version is from 2008:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=9b2da534-3e03-4391-8a4d-074b9f2bc1bf

Hi Querius,

It's preinstalled.  I have Visual C++ 2005 on my Dell Inspiron and on a HP Mini PC (netbook) which I recently acquired, there were two versions preinstalled: Visual C++ 2005 and Visual C++ 2008, the latter apparently needed to use Skype.

Hope this has been of help.

Thanks Mona - that is a great help! So yes if I want to use skype, having it on there might well be useful :)

 ...and also thanks - it does help a lot to hear an HP machine has it on too!