it does take a little getting used to and letting the program learn, it will pop up and ask you do you want to let such and such connect to the internet you will likely know what is asking because you are trying to use something that needs access so in those cases say yes, if it is something that needs to access it regularly like your antivirus check mark where it says remember this so it does not ask each time. Do not give server rights some things will ask but it is not necessary once you say no to server rights it will next pop up asking for access, that you can allow. If it is something you do not recognize asking then say no and see if you can determine what it is, if you had some type of malware that is trying to phone home you would not want to allow that access. I prefer mine to pop up and ask each time with some of the rarely used stuff I like to know what is connecting. When getting zonealarm or any other free firewall or any program actually be very alert during the install period and uncheck or do not allow the addition of any toolbars or extras, Zone alarm unfortunately now does try to include a toolbar with the free version, you do not want that toolbar. and if you have problems or questions just ask. When something like generic win 32 something ask for permission say yes or you will not be able to connect to the internet, that is one to check mark always allow. Yes as grandms said with cable you have a direct connection and with no router in between you and the internet that even more dictates the use of a software firewall. The benefit of a router with built in hardware firewall is great but I use both on my windows machines, actually my linux has guarddog firewall built into it so I even have one on linux. The link I had provided the main reason I do refer that link is that there are such good instructions and pictures for someone new to firewalls.

Maybe the first thing I would do .. Go into the device manager(right click myComputer & select properties) and look for yellow exclamation or red stop errors. While there under Network Adapters you should see two adapters; One will be your wireless adapter and it probably says 802.11b/g/n and manufacturer name. The other network adapter should say something about 'Ethernet adapter and manufacturer name. Double click the Ethernet adapter and then look around for probably a check box that says something about Disable this device. I would disable that ethernet adapter because you aren't using it... that will stop that Network Cable Unplugged message,,, and might possibly be the conflict - if so you might get lucky and your wifi will connect after a reboot. Ummm, what else might you try. The Event logs in your computer management window might give you a hint what's wrong... thats accessable by right clicking myComputer and select Manage. You say you never have added hardware... hardware that would use an irq would be things like a portable hard drive, a flash memory card, anything usb, a pc-card slot device, a seperate monitor. Try unplugging things attached one by one to see if one of those might be causing the conflict. Hopefully its not your wifi card, but if after trying to eliminate the conflict and nothing else hardware wise stops the error message maybe you could disable the wifi adapter in Device Manager and then if the error message instantly goes away that would be a good indication its bumm or maybe rolling back or reinstalling the driver might fix it.

Jerry the biggest difference is Zonealarm's two way blocking feature which is lacking in the XP firewall. This means if phone home spies or other malware piggyback in on legitimate software you have absolutely no control over it with XP because it only controls incoming things. There is no down side to having Zonealarm instead of the XP firewall. Once set up it is very easy to control. Just pay attention during the download and install so that you keep ticking the free version to install. If memory serves me right you then need to go to your security window and turn off the XP firewall manually.

I did a quick Google on the Kerio configuration. It sounds as if you need to place the websites that generate the error into the exception list. Here is the text that I found using Yahoo Mail as an example (you would of course type in *.www.whatever website you want.com: "Double-click the Kerio Personal Firewall icon to open the firewall configuration. Click the Web tab on the left. In the Site Exceptions tab, click the "Add" button, and enter *.mail.yahoo.com for the www server address. Yes, you've read this correctlyÂan asterisk, followed by a period, then mail-dot-yahoo-dot-com. Click "OK." Click "OK" to save and close the configuration. Here is a link that might be useful: Is My Kerio Personal Firewall blocking access to websites?