Firewall problem after upgrade

Gratuitous Forum Support
1

For a while I have problems starting GSB after it auto-updates to the latest patch. The main screen appears, the title music starts playing but the menu-items don’t show up. At this point my computer essentially hangs, since there is no exit-button and ALT-TAB doesn’t work to minimize GSB.

After restarting my computer I edited the prefs.ini file to start GSB in windowed mode. It appears my firewall asks my permission to (re)grant GSB.EXE access to the trusted zone and the internet. In full-screen mode these request-windows stay behind the GSB screen and I can’t get to them.

It would be nice to be able to ALT-TAB to minimize GSB at this point or is there an other way to answer the firewall requests?

p.s. I am using Windows XP service pack 3 with the ZoneAlarm free firewall.

2

Its Zone alarm, the free one USED to be real good. Now its a trashed up version that constantly resets ifs permissions and almost ALWAYS askes you to reset your program prefs. I dumped it for something else. But at this moment i can not recall what i use as i’m not on my home pc right now and can not look.

3

It could be ZoneAlarm, however this problem only occurs if GSB auto-updates.
If I install GSB from scratch, the problem doesn’t occur and the ZoneAlarm ask-for-permission window does come to the foreground.

4

This is because gsb.exe changes when the game is patched, and zonealarm thus treats it like a new, scary .exe. The windows firewall doesn’t seem bothered by it, which is a good (or bad!) thing…