I downloaded the free zone alarm to try out on my home network i just setup with 4 pc's routed to a cable modem. i've set up two windows 98 pc's without a hitch (yet) but the one in my pc notebook (windows me) does something strange. after installation,i try to run the program and the main window appears. fine. then a really quick blue message pops up which i cannot decipher because after a split second, it all just disappears leaving a ZA icon right beside my clock on the bottom right. then when i direct my mouse to click on that icon, it disappears. i've tried reopening the program,uninstalling and reinstalling and still the same thing happens. why does it not work only on my notebook pc?... has anyone else experienced this? and will this problem remain if i upgrade to zone alarm pro? ... then again, should i just try another firewall?

Have you gone through the tutorial to see how to set Zone Alarm up? What have you set the preferences to? Open Zone Alarm, select Overview and go from there. Please post back for more help, if this does not resolve the problem. The free Zone Alarm program does have a pop up screen at startup for upgrading and to advertise itself. If you have a pop-up stopper, perhaps it is causing a conflict. Sygate and Outpost do not have startup pop-ups, Kerio like Zone Alarm does. Take care and all the best!

Thanks for the tip. Actually, I did go throught the tutorial and setup Zone Alarm on my other 2 pc's successfully. On my notebook, I dont even get to choose the settings in overview because the program exits before I can do anything, leaving the icon on the system tray. Then when i point to the system tray, even that icon disappears. Could it be a virus that shuts down Zone Alarm?... in any case, I'm trying Sygate now and it seems to be working properly. I'm just really curious as to what caused the Zone Alarm to act that way. I'm not really sure if I have a pop-up stoper so probably I don't. Well, again, thanks.