I noticed that security center in the area that says security essentials says its on and I check my network connections but when I go down to where it says firewall the option keeps saying its not on how does that work ?

With WinsXp, SP2 the Windows Firewall comes on automatically when you turn on your pc and boot up. Or, if it doesn’t it should.
If you go to start, settings, control panel, you should see an icon called “Windows Firewall”. If you left click on that you should see whether it’s turned on or off… :slight_smile:

A friend of mine had a problem with the SP2 firewall switching itself on and off and security centre and system tray giving confilcting information. We found out it was because he installed SP2 without having previously installed SP1. Installing SP1 (without rolling back the SP2 install) fixed the problem.

There is no requirement to install SP1 before SP2 as it is a cumlative update of all patches up to and including SP2. There is obviously some other issue.

I found out why :slight_smile:

I have the Zonealarm program and thats my default firewall.

ZA and XP2 Security Center work well together: ;D

Bob, I have a doubt…
If you have a third party firewall like ZA, do you have to turn off the Windows internal one?
I use Outpost and does not disabled the internal Windows one.
When I open the Central Security, I does not see Outpost there?

Sasha, how does it work for you? ::slight_smile:

Just a reminder sp2 firewall only stops inbound traffic …not outbound, although it does load before the o.s loads, so in theory, provides protection as the system boots fully into windoze before other add-on software firewalls load.

My opinion (he adds quickly) I don’t rely on it alone. Compatability issues with sp2 firewall and other software firewalls seem to come down to individual machine configurations. Personal opinion here :wink:

Technical
I have both running Windows Firewall and ZA and neither one balks about the others presence.

I agree with you about both firewalls running together (za and sp2) unfortunately za completely “hides” my machine and results in unwanted network traffic from my isp trying to establish a connection. I had to un-install it for that reason… my cable provider needed to have a response to allow connection.

I’m sorry, you lost me??? I also use cable and don’t have that problem.

bob

my cable connection requires a response to it’s network ping, if it gets no response, I’m offline as far as my isp sees.

They can then allocate my network address to another customer, although it’s still in use by me.

Convention dictates that any machine connected should be “pingable” so that the address isn’t allocated to another machine. Full on zonealarm disregards this network protocol and causes problems.

inthewildteam:
So what did you do to satisfy your cable co.??

Changed to outpost firewall

Does it appear into the Central Security?
I mean, can you read Outpost there like Bob reads ZoneAlarm?

Yes, further reading below might help if you are using latest version. The free version doesn’t show on my other machine btw.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=875352&product=windowsxpsp2

Bob, I am also on a cable provided service here. Mine is like yours in that it doesn’t need this I.D. ping for it to be used by me. Must be different O.P. in different areas and with different companies. :slight_smile:

Technical. When I was using the free version of Outpost not long ago, also using XP Home with SP2, I could go to the security center and under the option of firewalls it would tell me that there wasn’t one detected BUT that sometimes there could be a third party FW running and WinXP security center just wouldn’t see it and tell you about it although it was there. When I changed over to the free version of Sygate FW the security center DID identify it and told me it was there. Now that I am using Zone Alarm Pro Wins security center does see it, and tells me that it’s there. I used to run with Outpost and the XP firewall at the same time without any problems. Just haven’t tried it yet with Z.A. although Bob says they work well together. :slight_smile:

@ neal & bob

U.K. here with NTL as my cable provider. Dynamic ip addy, if no response from my “machine” my ip addy is given back to the pool of available addresses to be used. ZA was masking my machine’s reply to the network query.

It’s not a big deal, just that any network connected machine should show a reply. Doesn’t have to be open … just reachable.

Inthewildteam,

Here my cable company changes the I.P. at different times without any regularity. It’s technically a Dynamic type of I.S.P. and not a static one but they as I say do change it from time to time. Works well and that may be the norm for some cable companies over in our area. :slight_smile: