Firewall

[John Barnett - MVP]

To stop your msn friends from shedding buckets of tears i
suggest you change firewalls. I suspect you are using the
Windows XP built in firewall. This, unfortunately, is not
particularly user friendly, especially when it comes to
opening ports for access.
A far more user friendly firewall is Zone Alarm. Now you
can get a scaled down version for free from
www.zonelabs.com Just because i said 'scaled down'
doesn't mean that it isn't as good as the purchased
version because, believe me, it is.
Download Zone Alarm and then disable the XP firewall. To
do this go to Control Panel and click on Network
Connections. Right click on your internet connection and
select Properties. In the Properties windows click the
Advanced tab and then remove the check mark from "protect
my copmputer and network........" option.
After you have disabled XP's firewall you can install
Zone Alarm. Once installed zone alarm will ask for your
permission everytime anything wants to access the
internet. You either tell it to go ahead or you refuse
access. It's up to you. It will even tell you when
someone is try to hack into your pc. This can be a pain,
especially when someone tries to ahck into your system
every few minutes. But you can disable this feature so
that Zone Alarm protects your system but doesn't bother
you with the details.

Hope this helps

John Barnett - MVP
Associate Expert
>-----Original Message-----
>I am trying to get on to my msn messenger, I keep
getting
>a message that says that I am behind a firewall that
does
>not allow a direct connection to the internet, what the
>heck are proxy settings and how can I change them? I
have
>been on msn for awhile, so this is a recent problem..can
>anyone help? My msn friends will be crying without me.
>Thanks!
>.
>