[JonnyInTroubleAgain]

Ok my friend has a problem...Something has ahold of his port 3504 ..he needs this port for connecting to a guild ventrilo server for world of warcraft. He is running xp pro..he recently did a format and reload, he installed various programs..had vent working and downloaded zone alarm pro version which shortly there after quit working because he didnt realize it was not the free version. At some point we are not sure when..his ventrillo and msn messenger quit working properly. I checked his ports using netstat -a and sure enough ventrilo was trying to access the proper site. I know the information is going out thru port 3504 and is making it back to the port however, is not allowing the information to pass back in. The vent server of the entire guild is set to 3504 switching ports is not an option. Some things I tried, restoring to a working point using windowsxp restore, connecting to another vent server...which by the way was successful, disabled, and reenabled the port itself using windows firewall, turned off windows firewall all together retried all previous steps in this state, booted to safemode no luck there either, checked to see if UDP was set, it was not for ventrilo(its set to tcp/ip), tried to set a UDP for it(no luck there either).

So basically by all means it should technically work, but its not....something has ahold of it as if the information being passed thru the port can go out...but not back in, if that makes any sense. I have looked over his programs to see if there would be any other program that could possibly use a firewall, but nothing that I can see. We also reinstalled zone alarm the free version, but still doing the same thing. I was hoping that zone alarm would retake control of the port thereby freeing it from whatever has a hold on the incomming information at that port. short of uninstalling tcp/ip or netbios, I have spent my expertise knowledge on computers..which is just enought to make me dangerous. Please if you have any suggestions short of format/reload...I would be well ....grateful.