Ozzie;;that fix didn't change anything here,,still have the firewall....getting very frustrated here.......

does anyone really know what their doing here,,or is it all abunch of people trying to pretend they know what they are doing,,,I have spent hours reading all these fixes and they generally don't work,,usually makes the problem worse. Might just have to start renting ****ing movies...less ****ing stress

All I can tell you is that after I once again checked my WinXP sp2 and mcaffee firewalls my problem disappeared.
I didn't actually change anything.
So I have no idea.

frizzer;;when you said you checked your xp service pak,,,what did you do to check it?,,and how can i check mine,,,thanks,,,,

Go to Control panel and click on security centre.
You will be able to see if your firewall is enabled and you can manage it (make exceptions) from there.
Hope this helps.