yep turn xp firewall off when using another  firewall. I'd use kerio sunbelt (or zonealarm if you don't have a home network).The problem is that two firewalls WILL conflict with each other on xp sp2. They probably did in w98 too but since security was not as big a part of w98 you might not have noticed or blackice might have diabled or monitored zonealarm or visaversa.