B4349,

Throughout this discussion, several times you referred to disabling avast! and also to reinstalling Zone Alarm. One thing you didn’t mention is whether you disabled avast! before installing ZA. I’ve haunted a lot of forums reading threads about installation problems, and one piece of sage advice is given almost every time: Always disable an AV product before installing software. (This is especially true when doing soemthing “hell scary” like installing Windows updates. :o ) Reportedly, the low-level operations of an AV can interfere with some (poorly written ?) installation routines.

I don’t know whether or not you disabled avast! first (or even if it would make a difference if you hadn’t), but I thought it worth mentioning. On occasion, I’ve forgotten to disable NAV prior to an installation and suffered no consequences, but from the hundreds of threads I’ve read, apparently I was lucky. (I’ve heard it said that God looks after drunks and fools. ::slight_smile: )

Regards,
Hornus