Hi all,

Having a running problem while using games and my LAN.

If I play a game and try to start a Multiplayer game, it will freeze. This is because my Firewall has detected the game trying to access the Network, and has popped up a warning dialog box asking if I want it to allow access.
The problem being that some games I've come across wont allow ALT-TAB switching in order to answer the firewalls message. Even pressing CTRL-ALT-DEL will not show Task Manager, as its kept behind the game. With most games, when I've pressed CTRL-ALT-DEL, you can see the standard windows pointer but cannot see the dialog box. At this point I can either randomly click where I think the correct button is, or more generally I have to reset the PC.

Is there any way of forcing XP to bring dialog boxes and windows in front of games?

I now add the game executables to the firewalls ALLOW list manually, but this can be a pain in the rear, especially when the most obvious EXE is just a launcher for the actual game EXE.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated - and guranteed its going to be so flamin' obvious I'll spend the rest of the week kicking myself!


XP Home SP2
CA ETrust AV and Firewall (essentially ZoneAlarm Pro)
Athlon 2600
GF5500
512MB
Nvidia NForce 2 chipset.



Gav