It has been a while since I did my great wipe

The PC engineer who fixed things seems to have gone out of business

Since yesterday, when I turn on PC, whilst waiting for the PC start up sequence to complete I now keep getting a warning the XP SP2 firewall is not switched on.
I click the bubble it gives or I go via the control pannel to the security centre. But when I go to the security centre it then says it is switched on. I check the firewall settings and can not see anything out of place

I have done a spyware search and a virus scan. Since yesterday I have only had one start up where that warning did not show up.

I have not observed anyother performance issues yet.

What is wrong?

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Fame, glory adventure, a cyber warrior craves not these things.

I don't know much about this sort of thing but my suggestion is to switch off the firewall and then restart and then switch the firewall back on. I have no idea if this would work, just an idea.

Sticks - do you want to use the Windows firewall, or do you use a different one?

If you are using a different one you can advise the security centre that "I have a firewall solution that I will monitor myself" via a checkbox in the "recommendations" section. This should, in theory, stop Windows even looking for your firewall, and should stop the alerts.

If, on the other hand, you are using the Windows firewall I don't have any helpful answers!

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The plural of "anecdote" is not "data".

I use the Windows XP firewall as I was advised by the PC engineer that it was just as good. previously I was using Zone Alarm, which slowed start up.

At the moment It has stopped giving that warning on start up and returned to the normal start up. (Which probably means next time i restart after posting this the anommaly will return.)

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Fame, glory adventure, a cyber warrior craves not these things.

Whoops!What's a few extra seconds for start up compared to knowing your computer's properly protected?

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Sticks,

Have you considered a hardware firewall, perhaps a swith or broadband router with firewall built in?

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Greens Law of Discussions

I thought all you folks in Britain had bidets.

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I just use the XP firewall. Zone Alarm is too irritating for me, since it asks you every five seconds if it can happily block access to your computer from anything, regardless of threat.

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"Gun control is hitting your target; Recycling is reloading your brass." ~ Lex of Dirty Work.

Zone Alarm is very friendly re configuration. If you choose to make your example a permanent option, it won't bother you again. Then it runs in the background doing a fine job.

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