Clients can't ping each other after AP firmware update

[Nelviticus]

I have a wireless access point from KCorp. My cable modem is connected to its WAN port via ethernet. I have a Windows XP box connected to one of its LAN ports via ethernet and a Windows 98 box connected to it wirelessly.

Before I upgraded the access point's firmware both client PCs could access the internet and each others' shares, so everything was working fine. Then I broke the golden rule of not fixing things that ain't broke, and downloaded the latest firmware update.

Now both client PCs can still access the internet but they can't access each others' shares or ping each other. I'm sure this must be because the new update has applied some default firewall rules that weren't there before. Does anyone have any idea what I should be looking to change? I.e. what would a firewall rule that says "don't allow machines on the LAN to ping each other" look like?

The WinXP box has the built-in software firewall disabled and neither machine has any other software firewall in place.

When I try to ping by IP address from a DOS prompt it says "Pinging [machine name][ip address]..." so it is able to obtain the machine name from somewhere, but all the pings time out.

Thanks

Nelviticus

 

[Nelviticus]

Duh, I answered my own question eventually. Just in case anyone else has a similar problem, here is what was wrong:

The WinXP box had ZoneAlarm installed. At the same time that I updated the AP's firmeare I had disabled ZoneAlarm by removing it from the list of programs that run when Windows starts (not the StartUp folder but the registry setting). However, this had only disabled the front end - the bit that gives you messages and lets you configure settings - but hadn't affected ZoneAlarm's firewall itself. The solution was to re-enable the front end then either uninstall ZoneAlarm or turn off its firewall. I opted for the latter.

Nelviticus

 

[bcastner]

This issue is not ZA's problem alone. Nearly every software firewall I have seen:

. if disabled, the service component is likely still running
. if Msconfig or other tool removes it as a startup entry, it likely will still run without a desktop presence

As you discovered, Control Panel, Add/Remove programs is the way to go.

For Symantec NIS, even this may not be enough. See the Symantec Knowledgebase for manual cleanup and removal tools.