A note to folks running ZoneAlarm v4.5 who decide to upgrade to v5.0:

There any number of issues that can crop up, including "breaking" your internet access (regardless of whether you are dial-up or broadband) and for some few unlucky souls like me, getting a BSOD every time ZA pops up an alert confirming whether or not your favorite proggie should be allowed internet access or not.

I mean EVERY SINGLE TIME, and it didn't matter if it was Outlook, Agent, Opera, Flashget, CuteFTP... whatever. Just choose Allow or Disallow, and watch my system go BOOM! :o

Zonelabs is looking into the problem and props to their tech staff for responding in less than an hour to my bug report. But a quick glance at their support forum (.http://forum.zonelabs.org/zonelabs) will reveal a long list of serious issues with v50.590.015 that are to this point unresolved.

The only "fix" in most cases is a complete uninstall (using the /clean switch) and re-installing v4.5.594.000 - which also means losing your customizations regarding program access, etc. (You can try copying your 'Internet Logs' folder before uninstalling - then putting it back after the re-install, but there seems to be a 50/50 chance that this will cause issues all by itself.)

Best to wait a few days and see if ZoneLabs can fix the problems.

BTW... these are the first BSODs I've ever had since installing SP1. Gotta love it.

Regards,
-ManX