diff --git a/Shorewall/Perl/Shorewall/Config.pm b/Shorewall/Perl/Shorewall/Config.pm
index 378bc1ad9..88652a8ce 100644
--- a/Shorewall/Perl/Shorewall/Config.pm
+++ b/Shorewall/Perl/Shorewall/Config.pm
@@ -1863,9 +1863,10 @@ sub read_a_line(;$) {
 	    #                            $1      $2      $3           -     $4
 	    while ( $currentline =~ m( ^(.*?) \$({)? ([a-zA-Z]\w*) (?(2)}) (.*)$ )x ) {
 		my $val = $params{$3};
+		
+		$params{$3} = $ENV{$3} if exists $ENV{$3};
 
 		unless ( defined $val ) {
-		    $params{$3} = $ENV{$3} if $ENV{$3};
 		    fatal_error "Undefined shell variable (\$$3)" unless exists $params{$3};
 		    $val = '';
 		}
@@ -2884,7 +2885,7 @@ sub get_params() {
     my $fn = find_file 'params';
 
     if ( $fn ) {
-	progress_message1 "Processing $fn ...";
+	progress_message2 "Processing $fn ...";
 
 	my @params = `$globals{SHAREDIRPL}/getparams $fn`;
 
diff --git a/Shorewall/releasenotes.txt b/Shorewall/releasenotes.txt
index 4e9a08ffe..88291f89b 100644
--- a/Shorewall/releasenotes.txt
+++ b/Shorewall/releasenotes.txt
@@ -34,9 +34,9 @@ VI.   PROBLEMS CORRECTED AND NEW FEATURES IN PRIOR RELEASES
     to process the file and to pass the (variable,value) pairs back to
     the compiler.
 
-    In this new implementation, the contents of the params file
-    override the environment of the program that runs
-    /usr/share/shorewall/compiler.pl.
+    In this new implementation, the contents of the environment of the
+    program that launches /usr/share/shorewall/compiler.pl overrides
+    the contents of /etc/shorewall/params.
 
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
              I V.  R E L E A S E  4 . 4  H I G H L I G H T S