Firewall screwed up XP network settings

Hi,

I recently uninstalled NIS 2005 and embarked on a quest for better AV and Firewall software. On the AV front I found NOD32 and stuck with it.
With the firewall it was a bit more complicated - I tried Outpost Pro and I think that either it or the complete uninstall of NIS screwed up some of my network settings in XP. I have since uninstalled OP and have tried, with no luck, to solve these problems firewall-free.

Here are the three problems I encountered:
1. Windows Update would not download updates -I found it to be a problem with the Background Intelligent Transfer Service - only a repair install of XP solved that problem.

2. Access to my Router User interface (through IE) has become quite slow, with pages taking their time to load. I haven't found a solution yet.

3. I use a mail tagging program called MSGTAG – and since I uninstalled NIS / installed OP I can't send any messages through it. I tried a few methods to resolve this issue and interestingly, when I connect directly to my DSL modem through a PPPoE connection - mail is sent through MSGTAG without a problem. On the other hand, when I send a message through MSGTAG from another computer on the network, connected to my router - it is sent as well...so the problem is not within the router. Even with no firewall installed - messages still aren't being sent.

It seems as though the install / uninstall has resulted in some changes to my network settings or protocols. Nothing I checked "on the surface" seems to be wrong - all tcpip, dhcp settings look OK.

Are there any hidden registry settings that I've been missing?
Any help you can offer will be greatly appreciated...

Much thanks in advance!

 

I have found that sometimes Norton will leave behind drivers after uninstall, you might give the cleanup tool a try.

 

Thanks for the reply!

I used that clean up tool when I uninstalled NIS - and I think that either it or OP caused the problems...

 

A couple other things you could try, go into the device manager, under "View" click "Show Hidden Devices", then look under "Non-Plug and Play Driver" to see if there's anything left over, then try the XP TCP/IP Repair Tool to refresh the TCP/IP stack and remove any LSPs that may be left over.

 

Notok - thanks again for trying to help!
I tried using the cleanup tool, some other LSP and TCP/IP cleaning tools and checking the hidden devices...nothing seems to work.
It's as if something is disturbing the transaction between my computer, the router & the internet.

Any other suggestions?
Thanks!

 

I've noticed an unfortunate tendancy for XP to retain old network settings after they've been changed. Unfortunatley I don't know the direct fix for this problem, other than to reset TCP/IP, which doesn't always work, and you've already done with the tool, apparently. So you might try creating a new network connection and deleting the old. My next step would be to reinstall the netwok card driver by uninstalling and rebooting, you want it to actually recreate the file, not just use the same one over again. If there's an update to your current driver, this would be prefferable.

 

Notok - thanks again for the tenacity!
I tried your last suggestion - didn't do the trick

I'm waiting for a response from MSGTAG's developer (not holding my breath for a solution). It looks like I'll have to bite the bullet, format and do a clean install... but everything else is working perfectly...poor me

Thanks again for all your effort

 

Formatting may be the most efficient way of doing it. I've had it not give up old network settings in the past, and found no way around it. If there is a fix for it, I'd very much like to find out. So is that pretty much it for you? Let me know how it goes w/ MSGTAG, it may give me/us some insight.