Windows XP: games can't connect to ports?

[Xyllian]

I have Windows XP and it seems that none of my games can connect to the ports they need to in order to play over the Internet.

It's funny, cuz I had a friend call me with the same problem and I said to him "Well do you have ZoneAlarm running? Yeah, well shut it off. Works now, see?"

But I don't have ZoneAlarm running! And I made sure XP's built-in firewalling stuff is turned off in Internet Options.

So how are my ports getting restricted somehow? Web pages access fine so I know my connection is working...

[BipolarBill]

Are you using McAfee VirusScan?

[Xyllian]

Norton Anti-Virus 2002... think that might be the problem? I will disable it, but I think i had it running on my other profile when I was playing and it works fine.

I have two different login profiles on XP... "Biz" and "Games"... games is just for games and "Biz" is for everything else that I normally do on the PC. It turns out that my games connect fine on the "Biz" profile but not on "Games"!

The crazy part is, I have lots of startup/tray items running on "Biz" and none on "Games", but Biz works and Games doesn't.

Hmmm.... I'm very confused.:confused:

[BipolarBill]

So create a new profile. They're disposable. It's obviously not a system problem.