I use win7 x64+ avast + comodo firewall
I have installation problem with netbalancer.
It also appears with offical website's installer program.
It waste my time, I am glad I am necessary to install a defected program.

It's been so long since I've used it and the IE9 developer tools are so good that I forgot about Fiddler2 and its add-ons. It was always buggy, it's still under development (including beta versions) and you'll note numerous mentions of bug fixes in the change logs.

cFosSpeed is working and I don't think changes to Outpost default settings are required. Not sure it's useful to me, my router handles QoS well although it checks upload bandwidth in 512 kbps increments. My upload bandwidth was supposed to have increased to 1 mbps but it's not close enough for my router to see the additional 512 kbps.

And according to Comodo, installation changed a lot of my file settings.

Can anyone please tell me how I uninstall this and get my original settings back without losing other apps I installed today?

This software is absolutely useless without instructions on how to use it.

Telling us you can create a gateway to control 2 computers from just one of them without any instruction of actually how to do that is not worth the time it took to type.

After the reports of issues with NetBalancer and Outpost, I decided not to bother with testing if SeriousBit hasn't signed their files, I hope that they do so before the next giveaway. I decided to try the beta version of cFosSpeed, disappointed that they're so late to comply with Vista/Win7, but an extraordinarily sophisticated product. Installed fine while Outpost active, the code is signed but the driver isn't WHQL certified so you'll get a Windows prompt about that. I'll have to read through the documentation to see if I need to change any Outpost (firewall) settings, I suspect I'll have to unblock a protocol.

correction: "what resetting the new connections means"

I ran setup, and the message appeared, "Installing NetBalancer will reset your network connections and temporarily disconnect you from network. Press OK to continue." What does "reset your network connections" mean? I am suspending completion of the setup until I know that resetting the new connections means. Please explain.

Is there anyway to disable the automatic update?

I tried to download and install Net Balance Pro and it completely trashed my system. I am running Win7 64-bit and I had to go back 3 days and restore my system before windows would start again. I have never had this happen with any other program here, but boy I am afraid to try installing this one again.

@TK, Post 87

> So far I cannot find the UI setting to disable automatic update checks

We've accidentally dropped this setting in version 4.1, I'll add it back with the next update. Sorry.

(To all users that tried to use the coupon code this last hour and couldn’t:

It seems that it expired for reasons unknown to me, so I have extended it for one additional day, and it will be available this whole Saturday.)

Every time I run the software i am prompted with Failed to connect.
I have tried 5 times to run the software is there any solution?

@ 63 THANK YOU!!!! I read every post here every day. The information you've provided today is worth more to me than all the wonderful GOTD's I've downloaded.

This type of software can be notoriously difficult for the end users to quanatively test due to the variable nature of WAN contention and local application interactions, with that in mind I'll list what I do like about the tool itself (in the hopes these features will NOT be depretiated in next giveaway)

I do like how it does not perminantly bury itself into the operating systems sub-systems and can be removed from operation by a simple context menu selection on the tray icon (close and stop service)

I do like that it has multiple levels of UI functionality and once happy with the configuration and happy for it to just get on with the job one can close ALL the UI's not only the main UI which has un understandable resource hit when open, but also the tray icon and traffic window can be closed leaving just the service to get on with it folowing rules previously configured via the UI. In this configuration on my laptop running in reduced power mode (CPU at 33% speed 800MHz) the service periodically peaks at 1% cpu usage with a DNS cache tool and rainlender2 and listary and utorrent seeding a torrent I created and spybot search and destroy teatimer.exe and a syslogd server and a pop3 spam filter proxy and core.temp and clipdiary all running as well as the usual windows vista culprits and most of the time CPU usage is below 10% occaisionaly peaking at 20%

I also do like the developer producing a special GAOTD build which is pre-activated and not demanding personal information from end users just to activate the offering, this suggests the developer is more interested in feedback and end user interaction than building up a mailing list, unlike a certain recent offering.

So far I cannot find the UI setting to disable automatic update checks, if the settings UI has been omited it is important it is added for the next release!

I have managed to crash the UI once already, I do hope the service does not have any memory/resource leaks so it does not worsen overall system stability.

Over all, including developers interactions in comments section and promiss of a follow up GAOTD offering on future version that may incorporate new features and fixes suggested here I think it deserves a prelimary thumbs up.

@Russian - Cool! you can click it even if it disappears! Thanks.

@Slappy,
It checks for new version, you can disable this check from Settings.
i open setting and there is no such option . so to check update daily it's ok but every five minutes nooobe.

#72 Steve, The only way you could limit your partners usage WITHOUT installing this offering on both yours and her PC is to use traffic shaping in your router which could be rate limiting or Quality of Service rules or a combination of both plus maybe application filtering. Of course you could limit her usage by flooding the connection with Peer 2 peer software which may be what she's hammering your bandwidth with...

This rate limits only the connections and applications of the machine it is installed on. To expect it to limit the speed of a different PC on the LAN without being the LAN gateway is just illogical. Only way that could happen is by running denial of service attacks against your partners laptop to overwhelm its TCP/IP stack and thus leave few resources to service their own network requests which would be grounds for re-thinking most partnerships in my view.

This installed OK on my system (Win 7 Pro 64, OEM install on Thinkpad) and appears to be running fine. It sounds like just what I want, and I would like to run it on all my home PCs, but it has a major problem on my system.

The screen shows nearly all traffic as svchost or "unidentified or service traffic" rather than the specific process. I loaded Chrome and opened 15 tabs. It shows 1 chrome process as using 26Kb, the other 14 chrome processes with zero download, the svchost download at 32.2Mb and "unidentified or service traffic" at 5Mb.

I then loaded IE and the "unidentified.." download count increased to 5.7Mb and IE shows zero.

Obviously, if it can't assign traffic to the correct process, it can't do any balancing.

Is this something I've done wrong during the install, or my OS setup? Anybody got any ideas?

tried this together with yesterdays outpost on 1 machine (win 7/64) and it works just fine. Of course outpost alarmed multiple times and I allowed. Nothing strange and no problem at all.

Are you really serious? I've used Utorrent for a long time, and never had to implement a program to help me utilize ram for downloading files, both small and ultra large. I really think this program would have been better put to use when Windows 95-2000 was being used significantly more. Or maybe some people aren't fortunate enough to be running a dual core processor or faster computer. Yeah, that's it....Just keep telling yourself that one Jimmy.....lol....

@57 Fubar
"#12, Micke, accusing developers of spreading malware is malicious."

I think you need to get your marbles right here, first NOONE did accuse SeriousBit.
However Outpost did flag theire software, and they where informed and asked in a nice way to look in to it. Now that is not accusing, that is informing.

However accusing someone of accusing someone, when they are not is not ok.

"The probability of software of this type being compatible with Outpost is low. Remember, a major part of Outpost’s job is to monitor network traffic and to protect it’s own code and other critical system code."

I disagree, Outpost block the software at execution, like a anti virus software whould
do with a virus infected file. This is more likely a question about a code fragment.
It also has turned out that Outpost finds the file to have no digital signature.
And it can not find out who made the software. That is not a good sign, and is
most likely why Outpost blocked it in my eyes. If SeriousBit adds that info, the flaging may be stoped.

@Ruslan, SeriousBit

Where exactly is the setting to disable check for new version? I checked under Edit/Settings, and I can't find it.

Although the computer had been stopped and restarted a number of times today, on my last restart I could not connect to my browser or the lifeline to my family Skype. My ISP told me that I was logged in, however I could not connect to anything. There had been a hiccup in my installation as stated in my previous comment #50, so I uninstall the program ran my restore, and thankfully everything is back to normal. A shame as it looked as if it could have been useful, but I can't take the chance of losing Skype.

Before I install NetBalancer, Will I be able to run Process Lasso and NetBalancer together.

@Ruslan 70. I don't want to uninstall either and NetBalance took ages to install so I shall see how it goes. I'll contact the Outtpost people since it should be their problem - not yours :-)

#23 says "@Slappy,
It checks for new version, you can disable this check from Settings."
Boy, I wish I could, particularly since today's version doesn't allow us to accept an update. But there is no option that I can find to disable this supposed check. Doesn't make me feel good about the product.

Ruslan!
I rarely download from here but have three times and the standout was process lasso. I am impressed with your customer service here. This is the best marketing research anybody can do . . . TALK TO THE END USERS! Exactly what you're doing. We may be misinformed, inexact, bullheaded, fickle,ignorant, even abnormally stupid but - NEVER WRONG!
I do get a kick out of some of the people here that try to come across as experts amongst the several really helpful folks like Fubar and Zorgon amongst many others in this thread. I have been computing/programming/using them since before PCs as a hobby and sometimes self employment in retirement. That and $1.50 will get me a cup of decent coffee.

I am network ignorant by my standards although I did set up my pre Cisco Linsys WRT54GS router and fast cable modem system OK for for two wired win7 pro and premium 32 and 64 bit desktops, one Vista recent laptop and one XP SP3 laptop all with Max memory etc. connected wirelessly, all accessing an all in one network printer with full capabilities on each, shared music and files, as well as a powerline connection to the living room BluRay player, which cured the occasional Netflix stutter in wireless mode which it has built in for sreaming movies etc., a chumby 1 in the bedroom, and my main phone is a VoIP Magic Jack that is flawless. It all works with no router security enabled other than anti malware and firewalls because no one is near my house on 5 acres in the country and it is 500 feet back from the road. Thus my reluctance to go to anything with a stronger radio. Besides my Internet connection at 15 Mbs does not support gigbit speeds anyway from the Internet.

I am experiencing no problems with QOS now except for some stutter when playing music stored on my main computer on my other wired computer which resolves after a few minutes.

Will this program do anything for me? Also does it identify all devices with their names that are accessing the network? Will the powerline connection cause issues with it?

Thanks all in advance for wading through my book.

I was eager to test this as, despite having broadband, my pc's internet connection slows down tremendously when my partner goes online with her laptop through our router (wired, not wireless). I hoped to install it solely on my pc and to be able to limit her usage which is for pleasure and give me priority for my work.

While I appreciate the free download, it is absolutely useless without some instruction on how to use it.

The odd reply to a comment to go here, do that, add a rule, form a group is of no help at all.

Unless you already know how to use the software, or the minute intricacies of internet connectivity, this software is a total waste of hard drive space.

i managed to get this installed and activated in spite of it giving my outpost security suite a fit. had to turn off & exit Outpost, re-install netbalancer thru a number of permissions prompts - it said it needed to uninstall the earlier version. after uninstall, it balked at copying files on top of existing ones (? thought it had uninstalled - apparently didn't remove any files) but i skipped those as they were already there. had to reboot, and outpost flagged the files as suspicious, i suspect because netbalancer phones home to 174.37.88.144:80 (stats.iris.arvixe.com - which seems to be seriousbits shared host)and also wants to have unlimited tcp and udp rules which is a bit insecure. i don't want to have this running all the time so i will disable the service, and not run the tray thingy at startup. will load it as needed in future.

@John Saunders, Post 68

> Not sure whether to leave as is or uninstall NetBalancer.

Uninstall Outpost, leave NetBalancer.

Just kidding :)

50 & 55 I am grateful to both of you. I'm afraid that even though the admin command was accepted as successful, I still don't get permission re. the two files. I could uninstall Outpost & re-install Trend but I wanted to give Outpost more of chance and so far - apart from the current issue - I rather like it. It's funny but the NetBalancer icon in the tray looks as though it's working and my system seems quite perky but I just can't change any NetBalancer settings - at least I think that's the only effect of the two files not loading. Not sure whether to leave as is or uninstall NetBalancer.

@Helder, Post 57

Right now NetBalancer doesn't support this scenario, but a similar effect can be obtained with Grouping. Try it, it may help.

To anyone interested in how to access the "True" Administrator account in Windows Vista/7, here's the link that explains the procedure:

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9001970/How_to_access_the_true_Administrator_account_in_Windows_Vista?taxonomyId=17&pageNumber=1

Geez, I don't think I need a program to "schedule" my net download/surfing abilities.It's discription sounds nice but think I'll give my hard-drive and resources a break and stick with my methods. Pass

@Rusian - Post #60.

Hi Rusian, Whilst I and others on here, fully appreciate your being on hand to answer the queries raised, would it not have been a better plan to have done a LOT more market research before offering this prog, thereby avoiding the problems that some are getting and at the same time knowing what needs to be addressed before putting this out?

Personally, I am going to wait for the next time this is offered as it would seem like too much hard work to download for now. Like many GAOTD'ers, I have installed yesterdays security program which seems to conflict with yours, and I will waste a lot of my time in resolving the issues.

I accept that you are offering it on here so that we can test it for you but, Im afraid for me at least, it seems very unfinished.

Thanks for the opportunity and especially for your valued presence.

@promytius, Post 58

Right click on the little window (we call it Traffic Window), even if it disappears it s still there, and select Hide.

#34: "Outpost will not allow seriousbit.netbalancer.service.exe and seriousbit.netbalancer.tray.exe to run. I cannot even make them exceptions as I get a message that I do not have the necessary permission – even though I’m the administrator – and only user – on this pc."

Perhaps contact Outpost support &/or post in their forums? If it's a Windows issue, maybe a folder or registry key has restricted permissions, & if that's the case, changing permission levels should fix, but Outpost support would be in a MUCH better position to tell you what's going on.

* * *

#30: "Can I install this software on just 1 pc & then control the bandwidth being used by the other pcs."

#42: "I have not istalled the program yet which may give me the answer to my question but how will this work with or effect Vonage."

#44: "I have 2 laptops that connect to my PC wirelessly. My sons laptop just moves along effortlessly, however, my laptop crawls at a snails pace. Will this program help with that??"

Perhaps this will help...
There have been a couple/few apps on GOTD that helped to throttle back some of the programs/services running in the background so for example a game might run better. NetBalancer does the same sort of thing, but with or for programs & services that use network access. AS the app's site says: "You can use NetBalancer to set download/upload transfer rate priority for any applications and monitor their internet traffic." It should have no effect on a stand-alone network itself, e.g. the gateway/router & cable modem it's connected to -- it **might** have some effect on other PC/laptops connected to the same network *If* they're waiting for something on your PC that's been throttled Way back, but their connection to the router would be unaffected.

@46 Check out :-
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/enable-the-hidden-administrator-account-on-windows-vista/

This works for both WIN 7 & Vista.

Other tips can be found by googling 'Super Administrator'.

@Zorgon, Post 47

I think you're right, we programmers some times forget that not all people are programers :) We'll add a help manual.

@Alexander Gieg, Post 41

d) I'm not sure about OpenVPN integration, we'll investigate it. But if NetBalancer sees that virtual network adapter then it will work.

e) It will be $24.95, but you can also wait for our next giveaway in a couple of months :) or just contact me and we'll find a solution (this refers to all GOTD comunity).

f) A version for Win8 will exist definitely, for other platforms I can't tell yet, sorry.

#14, tester, the IE9 developer tools will tell you more information than you ever dreamed of.

Follow up to install issue. I clicked on the wrong icon, apparently. You need to click on the TRAY icon and everything starts working, except for this annoying little window with green and red sine waves and numbers that I can't get rid of, every time the mouse gets near, it disappears! And it's in the way.
The program is running, however, and reporting traffic and I look forward to using its features.

Can I set it to auto-distribute traffic according to the number of active devices x free amount of bandwidth?

On a network:
1 machine - 100 KB/s
2 machines - 50 KB/s max each, 80/20 being "20" a minimum value if machine 2 is running web pages and instant messaging only
3 machines - 33 KB/s max each, 40/40/20 being "20" the same minimum value if machine 3 is running web pages and instant messaging only

If so, this is the perfect tool for me!
Thanks!

#12, Micke, accusing developers of spreading malware is malicious. I just told everyone to check with VirusTotal if you got an alert. The probability of software of this type being compatible with Outpost is low. Remember, a major part of Outpost's job is to monitor network traffic and to protect it's own code and other critical system code. Expecting problems, I didn't have time to test this earlier, and my computer is busy during the day. I'm sure that mike will comment on the installation.

#4, Lukasz, NetBalancer appears to use better algorithms than NetLimiter.

#8, MrNiceGuy, cFosSpeed is a very sophisticated competitor, but considering it performs partly like a firewall, is even less likely to be compatible with security software.

#19, Ben, Task Manager deals with CPU priority, NetBalancer deals with I/O priority.

The advantage of handling QoS on the PC is that it can be customized per process. Newer routers also measure uplink speeds and provide uplink QoS, I suspect that some types of games/applications are identified via ports used. Newer routers also support Wi-Fi MultiMedia (WMM) wireless QoS. Router logs can be used to determine whether NetBalancer tries to communicate surreptitiously.

To #46 You can use the following to log in as the built-in Administrator. Works for me. This will give you the Adminstrator icon to log-in with

Accessories>run

Now type the following command:

net user administrator /active:yes

Disable Built-in Administrator Account

Make sure you are logged on as your regular user account, and then open an administrator mode command prompt as above. Type the following command:

net user administrator /active:no

i agree #15!

@Ruslan, SeriousBit

I am back home again. I made a def update on Outpost and this is what it says.

Suspicious object: SPA/Untrusted (Suspicious)
Executable Has no digital signature
Manaufacturer ???

I also noted that both files are very small. It can be that the warning is size based, and that they are ruled as virus/keygen/hack etc per automatic.

I hope it provides some clues.

#51 - What is M$? I am interested in researching the level about administrator

Overall I like it. For example it shows me that the Google home page opens connections to pw-in-f147.1e100.net and pw-in-f99.1e100.net, which I didn't know (sites registered by www.markmonitor.com Brand Name Protection on behalf of Google Inc. of Mountain View CA).

A few comments:
- Where is this option to turn off automatic update checking so that the program won't phone home every time it runs? I don't see any such option in the Settings.
- The program installs its balancing service as an Automatic service to run all the time in Windows, even when the tray GUI isn't running. You can set the service to Manual start, but instead of starting it transparently, the program shows an error message, then prompts to start it, then fails to start it with another error, then goes into an endless loop of the same until you cancel it. I'll have to create a service start batch file for it...
- I see that it uses Avalon Dock, the free window management system for .NET. Flexible, but buggy! For example when I drag the Connections window to the top right, the window controls disappear, and the only way to get it back to where it was is to hide it, unhide it (moves it to the bottom), and then click the Pin icon (puts it back at the bottom right).
- When I right-click and Copy a selected url in the Connections window, it copies only the IP address and not the url.

to 46: I WOULD tell you if I knew, but I do not and I do not know anyone who knows; I simply state the fact that even if you are admin in 7, there is a level above you; research it at M$.

John Saunders #46
When Outpost was being promoted the other day one ridiculous comment stated that false positives were not a problem. The obvious truth is they can be a nightmare depending on the anti-virus software used. As a software writer I suffered a similar fate when one of the components in my favourite programming language was continually quarantined. In essence this stopped the language from functioning and I was unable to make it an exception. My only solution was to change my anti-virus software, you may or may not be in a similar position.
Today's offering cause some confusion when being installed, towards the end of the installation a huge and confusing error message appeared, at the end of the message it stated I may have to restart my computer. I had created a restore point previously so thought to hell with it and carried on. When I restarted, the shortcut was on my desktop as requested and the program functioned in a way that appears to be satisfactory so far.
I'm not that much enamoured with networks even though it was a major part of my Masters, I'm much happier at the byte level. The ability to change the priority level however could be a very useful tool, so for the time being I'm keeping this program.