I recently installed a free firewall, ZoneAlarm, and it does not allow my computer to shut down, unless I first shut down ZoneAlarm. Then I have to click on the ZoneAlarm desktop icon after my computer reboots to restart the firewall. Why do I have to do that?

I suggest that you uninstall and then reinstall ZA. If at any point it asks you if you want to save, keep, or use your old settings tell it no.

Thanks, Townsbg. That would probably have worked but I discovered the problem. The ZoneAlarm toolbar was the culprit. Fortunately, it is a separate program. I uninstalled it, then added ZoneAlarm to my startup list and my computer now shuts down and ZoneAlarm starts up after reboot. Seems the toolbar was too much for my system with my active antivirus realtime shields. I should never have installed that toolbar to Internet Explorer when I installed ZoneAlarm.

ricochet

i'm glad that you where able to figure it out.

Thanks. I found out also that, when the regular ZoneAlarm program prevents shutting down the computer, you can reset the ZoneAlarm settings by pushing the Control and Shift keys at the same time and then right-clicking the ZoneAlarm icon. Click on "Reset Settings" and reset them to the original. Then shut down and reboot. You will then have to give individual permissions to each program you want to allow to access the internet.

ricochet

I found after using ZoneAlarm it slows down my computer too much. That problem was solved by replacing it with PC Tools Firewall Plus. Due to the number of antivirus and antispyware programs I have, I needed something that did not conflict with any of them. It works well with my Avast! Antivirus, Threatfire, Iobit Security 360, Microsoft Security Essentials, Vipre (I use the paid version with the active internet and email shields disabled; otherwise Vipre will disable Microsoft Essentials and Threatfire, which are two I need to have), A-Squared Free, SuperAntiSpware, and PreEmpt. That firewall is also easier to set up than ZoneAlarm (I use the automatic settings). No incompatibility problems with any of these when they are set up correctly.

ricochet