[Animal]

I find the Windows Firewall in SP2 to be quite serviceable when coupled with a NAT Router.

I used to use Norton Firewall previous to SP2 though, and it's rather odd that it's giving you some grief. It's usually a set and forget program.

You did mention that you re-installed your OS. Perhaps you may have gotten a hold of a virus/worm prior to you getting your firewall installed. I went through the very same thing sometime ago after a re-install. I would automatically head over and grab SP1 (SP2 wasn't available at the time) and a friendly little worm would piggy back along with the download.

Try running NAV, and then try an on-line scanner as well. I noticed that when I had the same problem, NAV didn't pick up the worm but the on-line scanner did.