Security problems with Nortion & multiplayer

Hi,
I'm pretty new to Multiplayer, but i've been playing Single player for about a year. I set up a Gamespy account and went to the foyer, but I'm having all kinds of problems with my Norton Internet Utilities. Not all the time, but all right in a row, I get like 8 "Atttempting to access your computer" errors. Then 10 or 15 minutes of quiest. Then more... it yanks MTW back to the desktop EVERY time it goes off, so it really ticks me off. But if the accessing is real, then I can't shut the Firewall off, cause somebody will hijack my computer, right?

hmm, I usually access Multiplayer by going through the game itself not through Gamespy (i.e. connect to internet, start MTW, go to MP and enter my Gamespy password there).

Dont know if that helps.
If not, someone with more knowledge about firewalls may have to answer.

I'm not connecting through the Gamespy website with a web browser. I'm using the game to do everything too. I just don't know why something in there is making Norton go crazy... Is it supposed to do that? Should I shut Norton off?

There are about a dozen ports sending and receiving messages back in forth between you, gamespy, and your opponents during online play. Sounds like Norton doesn't know if they are friend or foe so it stops you and asks? I dont use Norton but I would think you could adjust a setting to allow mtw access without being asked each time.
Do leave your firewall on...You won't make it thru 1 game without something nasty trying to get in.
Good luck with it Don. ~:cheers:

Thanks ROM. I don't know what I'm going to do about the alerts, because they're all coming from numeric addresses each time, and from the looks of them, none of them are the same computer. It's alright, it seems to stop while I'm actually playing. So if everyone needs a firewall, who actually hosts?

One way you can host and keep your firewall up is to open these ports.
Gamespy uses most of them for various uses while MTW uses the bottom 2.
Open them tcp and udp.
6667
3783
27900
28900
29900
29901
13139
6515
6500
Medieval Total war 18321
VI 18322

Also, there is a post in Tech tip of the day for configuring zone alarm(free) to host.