ZoneAlarm connection woes.

Hey Folks.

I've suddenly become unable to connect to the internet. After a bit of poking around I've concluded that ZoneAlarm is to blame. Shutting down ZA allows me to connect to the internet and browse websites normally.

When ZA is running, I can't connect to any websites using Internet Explorer, Firefox or Opera and can't connect to Windows Live Messenger. (Firefox give an error that the "connection has timed out"). Windows Live Messenger Troubleshooter finds fault on the "Key Ports" entry and gives the error code 80072efd

I've tried deleting the entry for Firefox, IE and Opera from the program control list and Allowing access to the network as a "New Program" when prompted by ZA but still no joy.
I'm at a dead loss here.

Any help on this one appreciated.

 

Did you just do a Windows update? It's known that KB951748 is the culprit that ZA doesn't like. Delete the KB or restore XP and put the internet zone slider to medium, that's what worked for a friend.

 

You know I didn't even stop to think that the update might have done it.
Internet zone is at Medium already.

I tend to maintain a fairly high level of paranoia with Windows and security updates - how problematic is removing that update likely to be? I'll remove it, but have a slight concern it may leave my system that bit more vulnerable.

 

See Halo's response in this thread as it deals with the same issue and he has put in extra information. http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=164044 The update is not a critical one so I wouldn't worry too much.

 

Thanks for the input Augie.
All's well now.

 

I had the same issue after the MS update last night. I only had to relax the internet security zone setting to medium in Zone Alarm to get connected. It seems MS and ZA are not seeing eye to eye. I had a really irritating issue with ZA and Vista before and the only solution was to uninstall ZA and use the Windows firewall. I hope ZA issues a patch soon I don't feel comfortable with relaxed security settings.

 

Reducing the security setting had no effect for me. The only thing that would allow me to connect was shutting down ZA completely. Now the update is gone it's all well though.

Next time I get a ZA update I'll try the windows update again and see how it goes. I'll post a verdict in here for completeness once that happens.

 

Zone Alarm has issued a fix for all, including the free version.