Everything Seems OK, But Now There's No Internet

Everything was working fine. But, one day, the system boots up and none of the Internet programs work. If it is on a small network or router and other computers don't seem to have any problem, keep reading. Otherwise, check out the *DSL Outage* link on the left.

Chances are that you may have multiple software firewalls installed. Firewalls like to play alone. When two or more are installed with default settings, networking capabilities become impossible. In reality, if you have a hardware router, the software router is not much use. Expert users can use them to control how/if applications can communicate on the Internet.

The problem computer is typically Windows XP with Service Pack 2. And, it has one of the McAfee's "Internet Security Suite" or Symantec's "Internet Security" products with its own "Firewall" manager. When they install, these applications turn off the Windows Firewall built into Windows XP. But, it sometimes gets turned back on, probably by a Windows Critical Update. They both start trying to monitor the same XP functions, and things go terribly wrong.

How do you know if this has happened? Follow these steps...

- Click on the *Start* () button and open the *Control Panel*. Then, double-click on the *Security Center* icon ().

- When it opens, you'll see a panel showing the three security monitor items -

- They should all be *ON*. Click on the arrows to the right of the Firewall *ON* indicator to see which Firewall is default.

- If you see *Windows Firewall*, this isn't the issue. If you see another company's Firewall, you need to check something else.

- At the bottom of this panel is a section called, "Manage security settings for:". Select *Windows Firewall*

- This panel will open...

... If it is on, as in this image (and the above check showed another Firewall as default), turn it off.

That is it! You may need to reboot. I personally recommend NOT buying these complete *Security Center* packages. Both McAfee & Symantec make great antivirus programs. But, the advanced features are duplications of what Microsoft offers in XP. And, you can get all of these components free off the Internet. See the *Software* link of our site (on the top). Scroll down the left column to"Free Apps & Utils".

If still need help, we will be happy to come out!

Last Updated 10/31/2005