I've just bought Sygate Personal Firewall Pro and it totally disabled my internet connection upon install. I downloaded the free ZoneAlarm firewall and it did the same thing. After I uninstall Sygate, my internet connection is restored and I can browse again but with the firewall on, I can't access the internet. I have a high speed cable internet by the way. I tried to configure Sygate to allow the connection but I'm not sure of what to do exactly. Thanks.

hi tm,
you must give internet explorer permission to access the internet.
all the best,
murve

You must also allow Generic Host Process, Net Kernal and Services. Each firewall might have a slightly different term for each of these processes, but they must be allowed for XP to access the internet.

There's a feature on Sygate firewall called "allow all", which I've clicked to give everything access but I still can't use the internet.

But did you do what murve and capt told you to? Sygate is blocking the packets which talk to your ISP's DNS servers. If you can't see those tasks in the bottom pane, untick "Hide Windows Services"

This is very strange because ZA now comes with the option to automatically enable your default Internet Services (browser, email client, news client, etc.) on install.

What you might do is this: With the firewall disabled, go to the command prompt and enter

ipconfig/all

Write down the IP address of your Internet gateway. Close the command screen, fire up your firewall, and enter this address as "allowed". In ZA this is under Program Control (Advanced), I think, but I'm not sure where it is in Sygate. That should fix it.

In rare cases a firewall will screw up during install, insert a bogus entry into your Registry, and even the Uninstall program will overlook this. Then you have to look up the manual uninstall instructions for your firewall to remove it. ZA used to do this all the time; I'm not sure about Sygate. You'd have to contact their tech support for help.

Oh, another possibility is that you have some malware on your machine already that interferes with the firewall. Run an up-to-date antivirus and spyware detector, delete any naughtiness, then Scandisk and Defrag before you reinstall your firewall product.