LinkScanner Knowledge Base

03.22.2007

Joe Chiarella - Product Manager

Product Support

There is a known issue with LinkScanner Pro/SocketShield and McAfee Internet Security Suite. Once the installation of LinkScanner Pro/SocketShield has completed and you reboot your machine, the McAfee product temporarily disables your network connection in order to rearrange what is called the Winsock Stack so that they are last in the stack.

The network connection should be automatically restored when this process has completed. If it is not, you have 2 options:

'SIMPLE' REPAIR:
First, go to the Control Panel and click on Network Connections. You will see a list of your network connections here. Please right click on your active network connection (normally called local area connection) and choose “Repair”

Second, you can restart your computer as this will repair the internet connection.

'MORE INVOLVED' REPAIR:
If this fails to solve the problem, it may be necessary to uninstall LinkScanner Pro/SocketShield to restore the Internet Connection. Once this is done and you have rebooted and verified the network functionality is back - you can take the following steps to get McAfee and LinkScanner Pro to coexist:

1. Uninstall McAfee
2. Install LinkScanner Pro
3. Install McAfee

Why this procedure?
Many network security products use what is called the Winsock Stack to read Internet traffic. Microsoft made a provision for doing this called the Layered Service Protocol (LSP). It provides for many software products to each have their 'turn' in reading the traffic. One reads the traffic and passes it on to the next in the stack who then reads it and passes it on and so on... When LinkScanner Pro is installed, it ends up last on the stack since it is last to install. However, some products, like McAfee and a few others, monitor the stack and when they see a new layer on the stack - they insist on being last. They then do a 'stack shuffle' to get to be last. It is this 'stack shuffle' that breaks the Internet connection.

By 'cooperating' with McAfee's need to be last in the stack (thus the install sequence shown above) it is possible to work around the problem. This solution is a tested and proven work-around.