As Cindee would say... I'm happy to help corrupt you into an Amaryllis Addict! Even though I treat my bulbs as houseplants, I've been doing a lot of research lately on the best ways to put my bulbs through a rest period or dormancy. Here is what the University of Minnesota Extension says about Amaryllis culture: "The amaryllis is a tender bulb that will bloom without special treatment when first purchased. It should be potted up in light, rich soil in a pot that is only 12 inches larger in diameter than the bulb. The upper half of the bulb should be exposed above the soil. After watering thoroughly, allow the soil to become quite dry. Water more frequently after the flower stalk appears, but never water when the soil is already moist. Put the plant in a warm, sunny spot until the flower buds show color, then move it out of direct sunlight. After blooming, cut off the flowers to prevent seed formation. The foliage should be handled as if it were a sun loving houseplant. Place it in the brightest possible location indoors until it is warm enough to sink the pot in soil outdoors where it will receive dappled sunlight at first. Gradually move it to a brighter location where eventually it has full sun for at least five or six hours daily. Fertilize with a balanced houseplant food at regular intervals to build up the nutrients needed for blooming the following year. Amaryllis should be brought indoors before the first frost in the fall. Traditionally, the bulb is then given a resting period by placing it in a dark location, withholding all water and allowing the leaves to dry. The bulb may be forced into bloom again after resting eight weeks, or even less, should new growth appear spontaneously. If necessary, repot in a slightly larger container. If the pot is still large enough, remove the upper 2 inches of soil and topdress with fresh potting soil. This completes the cycle, which may be repeated annually for many years of lovely blossoms. Amaryllis also can be kept growing actively year-round without the traditional rest and subsequent forcing. When handled this way, however, the bulbs probably will not bloom until spring. They still require annual repotting or topdressing along with adequate light and fertilizer to ensure repeated bloom. Often small plantlets will develop beside a well-grown amaryllis. These may be separated gently from the large bulb and repotted, or they may be left attached and allowed to grow to full size along with the original bulb. You could end up with a large pot containing several amaryllis, all blooming at once . . . a spectacular sight! With a little care and effort, you can have a steady supply of bulb flowers from late January to April. Forcing bulbs into flowering can be a great pleasure and challenge for anyone who is interested in flowering plants." Mine tend to bloom right around the beginning of February, and that is without a forced dormancy. I keep mine in pots in an east window all year round. Be sure to bring your bulb indoors before frost occurs in your area! I hope the above information is helpful to you... if you would like to know more, keep reading this forum... there are many well-informed gardeners here, all very nice, helpful people! You could also "google" Amaryllis/Hippeastrum Culture, and see what comes up... the internet is loaded with information! There is also a bit of misinformation floating about, so be sure to take it all with a grain of salt and a lot of common sense! Ask questions! "Knowledge breeds success!"

owbist, Thanks, it was just me being stupid, not reading what was before my eyes. Yes, Microsoft's Windows Security Manager did show a firewall was on, and it was/is Zonealarm. I didn't expect MS to be so open as to say some FW other than theirs was active. I'm at a meeting and grumbled to my neighbor at the table, he looked over and said: "it says Zone Alarm is on".

Sue, as far as I know, this is a valid offer. I got the same message, and I have been pondering whether I want to go this route. I currently use AVAST as my AV, along with ZA as my firewall. Not sure if I want to change and give the combination suite a try or not. If you do decide to go this route, you must uninstall whatever you are presently using as your AV since you don't want two AV programs running at the same time. I'm holding off for now, and if I should read lots of good things about the ZA suite, maybe I'll change to it if it's still being offered for free.

That is not the case for most users, have you done the registration? did you try a reboot? here is the evidence that the new versions can be moved to high. this is the free This is a post from dslr from a user that had his show no high option also and what his experience was "I continued playing with this and wanted to update folks based on this. I downloaded revo uninstaller to help me remove ZA. As I was playing with ZA, I noticed that I now had high security set in ZA! What?!! Where before it would not let me change the setting from medium to high (it displayed a message saying this was only available in ZA Pro) now it was automatically set to High! I looked at the version info to be sure ZA did not somehow give me a PRO version. Still shows free version, but now I can set it to HIGH security. I don't know what changed, except perhaps the "registration" took place between these two settings. I agreed to register this free version, and all I can think of is sometime after I installed/rebooted/ran it, the registration completed and ZA now allows me to set the security to high. This is really odd behavior. Right now i am running ver. 7.0.483.00 and it is now letting me run stealth mode (I think!). I am going to do some tests to see that stealth mode is actually enabled. Will post an update if I find that is not the case. Sorry if I caused a ruckus, but I have never seen any FW do something like this. Has anyone else see this particular issue?" so it does go to high. this is the suite on high