PC Guard - File and Printer Sharing

[countyexile]

I have a PC running Windows XP connected (wired) to my Broadband Modem via the Netgear wireless router supplied by VM.

I also have a laptop running Vista Home Premium connected wirelessly.

An Epson Stylus Photo RX640 printer is connected to the PC via USB

Both computers have Virgin PC Guard installed

I have tried to set up file and printer sharing without success. The file sharing works fine when the PC Guard firewall is de-activated but will not work when it is running so I presume the problem lies with PC Guard. I have searched the forum and come across several references to PC Guard and its predecessors not supporting file sharing, but also came across a reference on another site to a workaround, which said :-
"Someone over at blueyonder.support.pcguard (a customer) has apparently found a solution. He says...."Having persevered with this I've found a way to allow File and Printer Sharing with the PCGuard Firewall enabled"

Despite extensive searches of the forum I haven't been able to find this article though.

Does anyone know if there is a workaround to enable file and printer sharing with PC Guard running please and if so can they give me a link to the aforementioned article? Alternatively should I just permanently de-activate PC Guard and try a different Firewall? Thanks.

[Axegrinder]

Dump PCguard, as it is rather useless and tends to cause more problems than it solves, try avast antivirus or AVG Free :tu: (Though that is totally upto you of course)

[moaningmags]

Go into Internet Access Rules and select Add Program, you should see what you're looking for in the list that opens up, click on it to add it to allowed programs.

[xocemp]

The Firewall is blocking packets coming from the network device. This can occur if the network printer is not on a recognised local IP. This can also happen if the printer uses an unrecognised protocol such as IPX/SPX. The printer must be configured to use TCP/IP only.

[countyexile]

Thanks for the responses so far.

Dump PCguard, as it is rather useless and tends to cause more problems than it solves, try avast antivirus or AVG Free (Though that is totally upto you of course)

I'll certainly try one of those if I can't find a workaround with PC Guard.

Go into Internet Access Rules and select Add Program, you should see what you're looking for in the list that opens up, click on it to add it to allowed programs.

Tried that but all that comes up is a list of programmes on the PC and I thought you could only grant programmes internet access from there, not configure ports and IP ranges for network sharing.

The Firewall is blocking packets coming from the network device. This can occur if the network printer is not on a recognised local IP. This can also happen if the printer uses an unrecognised protocol such as IPX/SPX. The printer must be configured to use TCP/IP only.

Thanks, I'll try that for the printer once file sharing is working. The problem at the moment is that PC Guard firewall is blocking any form of sharing - ie both file and printer sharing.

[countyexile]

Gave up trying to find a workaround and have now de-activated the PC Guard firewall on both machines (leaving antivirus etc still running) and activated Windows Firewall on both. With this set up both file and printer sharing work normally.

It does seem crazy, however, that VM actively encourage home networks by supplying a router and allowing PC Guard to run on up to 3 machines yet the PC Guard firewall software it supplies will not support home networking!