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| Troubleshooting your Activeworlds Connection - Norton Internet Security |
| Another widely used security application is Norton Internet Security. Although Norton Internet Security (NIS) is much more than just a firewall, it will, by default, block the Activeworlds browser from connecting to the universe server. If you have NIS installed and running on your PC and you timeout and see the error, "Unable to connect to Universe server", then it's likely that NIS is causing the problem. The first thing to do is to find out if Norton Internet Security
is actually running and enabled. To find this out, look for the
Norton Internet Security or Norton Personal Firewall icon in the
system tray. The Norton Internet Security or Norton Personal Firewall
icon looks like a small green and blue globe (circled below). Double-click this icon to open the Status & Settings Window. From here you can access all of Norton Internet Security's settings, configuratino options, and status reports.
This screen will show you the status of each of Norton Internet Security's tools. If the Personal Firewall is displayed as 'On' and you are unable to connect to Activeworlds. It is very likely that this is the cause. Hightlight Personal Firewall by clicking on it. It will be highlighted in blue. Next, click the yellow 'Configure' button in the bottom right corner of the window. This will open up the firewall configuration settings.
Like ZoneAlarm, Norton Internet Security can set up configure programs automatically the first time the program is launched. It has a similar alert box that is displayed that has an option to 'allow' or 'deny' the program access to the Internet (see below). However, you can also add/remove programs manually using the Program Control screen. In the picture above, you can see that aworld.exe is listed in the Program column and has a Internet Access of 'Permit All'. This is how you want to configure Activeworlds. If aworld.exe is not already displayed in the Programs column click the 'Add...' button and navigate to C:\Active Worlds where you'll find the file aworld.exe. Select this file and click 'Open'. Click 'OK' to close the Program Control Window and return to the Norton Internet Security. As mentioned above, the simplest way to configure programs for Norton Internet Security is to use the New Program Alert options. This works by displaying a dialog box each time a program is run for the first time.
The drop down list under 'What do you want to do?' offers 3 different options:
Naturally, you want to select option 1 "Always allow connections..." so that the Active Worlds browser can connect to the universe server using the Internet connection on your PC. Unlike ZoneAlarm, you do not have an option to 'Remember this setting'. Instead, Norton will automatically remember the choice you make. Online Resources
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