I have been the owner of an Acer laptop that came with Vista installed on it for about a year now. The machine itself has been good but Vista has pissed me off. The main problem I had was some of my programs would connect to the internet and some not. Most would, about 85%, and the rest would not. Adobe Photoshop, Deamweaver, Premiere Elements would connect, but Adobe Lightroom would not. Qimage would not connect so I would install updates manually. FileZilla would not connect so I used a FTP plugin for Firefox. Woopra client for their web analytics would not connect. Phase One Capture V4 would not connect. I also have a homemade PC running XP so I lived OK with all programs working on my PC. Thankfully.
I tried turning Windows Firewall off, made sure the programs were allowed through the firewall in the firewall options. I checked the settings in my router. I tried things on and off over time to find the problem but I am no computer guru and lived by workarounds. Then today I had the inspiration to check the Windows Services Panel. I looked through the list trying to figure what they all are. Turning services on and off, I came across One Care Firewall. What was this? There is also Windows Firewall there. Where did this come from?
When I first got the laptop Vista came with a free 30 day trial of One Care Live computer care, to keep your computer in tip top shape. After the trial period I uninstalled it. By the way One Care Live is a Windows pay for service where all the products are free from Microsoft if you look around a little bit. I disabled One Care Live Firewall and all my programs now connect to the internet!
If you have this problem check this out. Go to Control Panel>Administration Tools>Services and look for One Care Firewall, double click, or right click and select Properties. Click Stop this service and select Disable from the drop down menu. Check to see if your programs now connect. I have been running with Windows Firewall turned off, relying on my router, which is fine, and I turned it back on. All programs still connect.
Why is this hidden? And have I not heard of this before. I knew I lived under a rock.
