Hi there, Please read this message although it's a bit long! I think I need some serious help on that firewall stuff... I run two win2k computers in a homenetwork for printer and internetsharing. One is connected to the internet (USB ADSL), and the other is connected to the first with an Ethernet card and a crossover cable. Someone on this forum adviced me to put a firewall on both of the machines so I did. I've been reading lots of information on firewalls on the internet and in the end I decided to go for Sygate Personal Firewall because: 1. it's free 2. a lot of people say its a good one 3. it's supposed to support ICS 4. and I read it's easy to configure... As far as points 1 & 2 are concerned, they're defenitely true, but in my opinion it sure isn't easy to configure and so up till now it does not support my ICS :) The only way in which I can share my printer and internet connection is by allowing all trafic and that's exactly what I don't want to... Obviously I'm doing something wrong. I read the manual for the firewall provided by Sygate but it's not very informative on network settings. Someone on this forum placed a link to Kings Homepage on the Sygate firewall. It actually is quite good in explaining al the features in the GUI, but even with that information I don't get the thing working. After some pointless configuring, I uninstalled the firewall on both machines, restarted, and installed it on the host machine only, hoping that I could find out how this thing works in a more systematic approach :) What I've tried so far: 1. Clicking yes to all applications that ask to be allowed to access the network. Didn't work... 2. Configure an advanced rule that allowed all traffic between the two computers. I tried this in two ways 1) by filling in the specific IP's and 2) by filling in the Subnet fields with the proper IP's... didn't work either... 3. Allowing all applications individually and then one by one blocking them till I couldn't reach the other computer on the network... With the last approach I hoped to find out which applications were necessary for the communication between the two computers. The funny thing is, in the end I had blocked all applications and both computers could still find each other on the network. Thinking this couldn't be right, I restarted my computer and... indeed nothing was working again. There are a few other things I've tried which are probably not worth mentioning here. Anyways, I've been configuring the hell out of the thing (and me) in the last days and am beginning to suspect this firewall is playing tricks on me... everytime I think I'm beginning to understand how it works, it proves me wrong by reading my mind and doing exactly the opposite of what I was expecting. Is there any information available that can guide me through this process step by step (I've got to learn to walk, I guess)? Or is there anyone who can help me out in doing this (post some advice and get back now and then in case I need more help)? Can it be that my network is configured wrong (without firewall it works perfectly)? Should I try another firewall which is still easier to configure (I prefer a free download)? In other words: HELP! I'm drowning... Thanx in advance.

hello i have a network set up the same as you.except i use zone alarm on both. it was easy to set up. the computer on the cross over cable you just set as if you were on the net directly. the first computer you must set it to alow the second to acess the net by configureing it as an internet conection gate way(nat). i,ve not used sysgate for what your doing only as a singel machine fire wall zone alarm has free fire wall allso. so has kero.

you may need to move beyond the FREE versions and actually pay for a decent firewall to configure it like you ask.