Frequently Asked Questions

Most of the problems with application programs not working after the installation of Windows XP Service Pack 2 (WinXP SP2) are caused by either the new firewall setup that deny connections unless it is a reply from an outbound connection, or by the new popup windows blocking in the new Internet Explorer (IE).

Previous to WinXP SP2, a program running on the host could initiate a network service by passively opening a port, and expect a connection to be initiated from outside. However, with the new WindowsXP firewall with the default settings, this can no longer happen.

An example of how this affects a WindowsXP user is, as mentioned previously, blocking of popup windows. However, some useful applications are affected as well, such as the UBC Wireless facility, which uses a popup windows to present the connection status and logout button. You can work around this by going directly to this URL

http://login.wireless.ubc.ca

You can also configure IE to allow popups from particular sites by going to the IE menu

Tools -> Popup blocker -> Popup blocker settings

Microsoft has put out a list of common applications that are broken by SP2, as well how to configure the firewall to cope with it:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=842242