I am looking for a firewall that will just work

I have a hand built desk top and a hp laptop and a compaqe desktop (for the kids) in my network!

I am sharing a dial up connection from the hand built desktop running xp pro

i am running through a linksys wireless router the lap top and the compaq are wireless and the hand built desktop is run with a cable to the router!

no firewall everything works fine but when i install a firewall one or the other between ics and file sharing quits?

i have worked on it for a few days now and im starting to get frustrated

I have tried zonealarm firewall nope

and sygate firewall and nope

and it all started with mcafee 2007 virus scan plus nope

does anyone know a good firewall that will do what i want it to do that i can download for free?

or may be some one could tell me how to enable file and printer sharing on sygate firewall???

that is the one im gonna run for now any suggestions?

Don't install that Sygate FW, it's bought up by Symantec, and we all know how rotten Symantec is!
Besides, it's no longer supported.

Free Comodo FW: http://www.comodogroup.com/

Free Sunbelt Kerio FW: http://www.sunbelt-software.com/Kerio.cfm

Try Using ZoneAlarm, If you want security and and a firewall that allows you to control any programs that require internet access this is the one for you.
www.zonelabs.com

Jetico Free Personal Firewall = http://www.jetico.com/index.htm#/jpfirewall.htm

Or get the Free Kerio Firewall = It will give you "full version" access for 14 days, then will revert back to free version(which works just fine).= http://www.sunbelt-software.com/Kerio.cfm

AnalogX PortBlocker = http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/network/pblock.htm

Try this one:

http://www.sunbelt-software.com/Kerio.cfm

Just click the download button. It's free to use. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to see the features.

Did you disable your windows firewall?

I have two systems running through a linksys router with ZoneAlarm for the firewall and have no issues. You must have configured something wrong somewhere.

In your folder options. Do you have the simple file sharing enabled?

It's not free but if you want a good "total" solution try:

http://www.kaspersky.com/

Since installing it (Kaspersky Internet Security) I've had zero problems, period.