i deleted the preferences folder and it didn't help,but...... i did finally get it to work, i did the port forwarding with my lynksys router. this link is awesome by the way and should be posted everywhere with firewall problems http://www.portforward.com/english/r...outerindex.htm
my question is why did i have to do this, i thought me unplugging my router and directly connecting to modem from isp elimanated me havng to mess with router? anyways thanks alot for your help, i went to the "reconfiguring norton firewall" link you gave and on that page i got sidetracked to the portforwarding link, i don't know if that was your plan but it worked.