I have used Tiny Personal Firewall v2.0.14 of 5-Jun-2001 under WinXP SP2 on an old laptop without any problems for the past 2 years. I have now tried to install it on another computer, with a freshly installed WinXP SP2, but the installation failed.
The installation did not complete properly. When rebooting after clicking on "Finish" in the InstallShield v6.30.100.1255 installer:
- the BIOS POST came up (is Ok)
- then the Windows logo came up, for about 3 seconds (is Ok)
- then the computer crashed (the Windows screen "welcome" did not come up anymore)
- then the BIOS POST came up again
- then a B&W DOS-type screen came up: "We apologize for the inconvenience, but Windows did not start successfully. A recent hardware or software change might have caused this..." The screen displayed is the same as displayed in Figure 29-1
WinXP could be loaded Ok only by selecting "Last Known Good Configuration", but then Tiny did not work, even if it was listed in Add/Remove. By selecting any of the Safe Mode selections on the B&W DOS-type screen, the computer would just crash again and the same B&W DOS-type screen would come up again.
Here some possibly relevant characteristics of the 2 computers
1) Successful installation of Tiny under WinXP
- 10-year-old Inspiron 7500 laptop with last BIOS update of 28-Nov-2000
- single-core CPU: the installed ntoskrnl.exe is 2.180.992 byes, 19-Jan-2005. hal.dll is 81.820 byes, 19-Jan-2005
- WinXP SP2 was originally installed under Win98 to an NTFS partition, which was converted with PartitionMagic to FAT32 some time before installing Tiny
2) Failed installation of Tiny under WinXP:
- newer Asus P5PE-VM desktop motherboard with BIOS update of 4-Jul-2007
(the BIOS could be updated to a newer version of 25-Jan-2008, but probably useful only for newer CPUs)
- dual-core E2200 CPU: the installed ntoskrnl.exe is 2.148.352 bytes, 19-Jan-2005. hal.dll is 134.400 byes, 19-Jan-2005
- WinXP SP2 was installed, by booting from the installation CD, to an empty FAT32 partition on an empty 200GB pre-partitioned HDD
- Tiny installs fine on this newer motherboard under Win98 (but not under WinXP)
My fiddling around included the following, to no avail:
1) I added the parameter /bootlog in boot.ini, but no file ntbtlog.txt was created in the Windows directory H:\WINXPSP2\
2) I uninstalled the failed Tiny installation, then put the HDD into another perfectly working desktop computer which uses the same Asus motherboard model (but an E4500 dual-core CPU), removed all cards from the computer and installed Tiny again. The installation on that other computer also failed, so the possibility of a hardware malfunction causing the installation problem can be excluded.
I have fiddled around a lot, but have not found a way to install Tiny on the newer motherboard under WinXP. My suspicion is that Tiny installs Ok under WinXP with a single-core CPU, but not with a dual-core CPU.
Does Tiny install Ok under WinXP on other computers with a dual-core? Tiny can he downloaded here
Any other ideas about getting Tiny to install under WinXP?