You were right! THE PROBLEM Windows SP2 is deeply rooted into windows. Even after uninstalling service pack 2 the firewall settings stayed. The firewall settings were blocking a program from accessing the internet. The program runs as a process to check the validity of the Poser product key. (Poser can't start without it) THE SOLUTION I used the new installation of windows to compare to my old one. I reinstalled Windows Service Pack 2 and found the exceptions list for the SP2 firewall. I put Poser in the list and the firewall does not block the liscense server. NOW POSER STARTS. Yay. Now I can ditch my new install of Windows. But you were right. I had my settings too high for the firewall. I didn't get the message saying Poser was blocked because I turned the service that sends the message OFF. (duh) Too much tweakin. Thanks for your advice.