Testing the firewall

Hi

I would like to know how to test the Firewall in ESS. I don't have 2 computers so I guess VMWare will have to do.

In VMWare I have an XP 32 bit, no SP/Updates and I would like to test it against some types of attacks from the host OS.

The thing is that a few times I found my PC with a nice BSOD related to tcpip.sys (D1) after using the BitTorrent protocol. I've set it not to restart cause I have a system password on it and it wouldn't help so the BSOD remains instead. There are times when the PC runs without a hitch for days and there are times when in a day of use I get the same crash.

I have no open ports other than that of the BT client and one, 1784 from alg.exe which I haven't managed to trace to in order to close it. All the other ports that come open with the default settings of XP have been closed and the services related to them have been either disabled or broken the connection between them and the open ports as it is in the case of DCOM.

My system has SP2 and regular updates and after I requested a special patch on Microsoft's support site they offered a lower build version than that that I already have, so I'm reluctant to try it out.

I use the built in SP2 firewall.

I was hoping that a good firewall might prevent an attack of the Teardrop type that I suspect happened before those crashes and I was curious if I can do that to the hosted OS in VMWare.

If I ask for to much on an open forum a PM help would also be appreciated on what types of attacks a regular PC can be subjected to and how to better configure a firewall to prevent such attacks without using an interactive mode.

And... NO, I'M NOT ASKING SO THAT I LEARN AND DO IT ON OTHER PPL!!!