I have a small home network with two computers connected to a DSL router (built in hardware firewall).

Recently, it seems a couple of malicious web pages or e-mails caused problems on one system(my wife downloads a lot of embroidery patterns and gets a lot of e-mails from user groups).

After correcting all of the problems, I decided to enable the software firewall that comes with WinXP. However, because of this, neither system can "see" each other.

Is there a workaround for this, or would using a third party firewall (Zone Alarm Pro or ???) be a better choice.

FYI, Norton AV is installed but apparently not updated to handle the recent malicious code.

First of all, what kind of problems was this system having, cause i dont think its a firewall issue here?

ALSO though..........when you say you enabled the software firewall that came with XP, did you mean the "internet connection firewall" in the network settings? Yes, If you enable that on a home network it will not allow you to see the other computers. It says this in the help in XP under "internet connection firewall". The help states its only a good firewall if you have one single computer connected to the net alone. This is true in some terms. As it still interfears with some apps accessing the interent that you might not want blocked. (In my case i had a bad experience with it blocking ppl's access to my FTP so i disabled it and it works fine now. And i then got just a norton firewall program to protect my system).


Masterfinn

Go to "plan B" ...... use the hardware firewall with ZoneAlarm ..... I've done this and since then ( almost 1 year ) I haven't had any probs.