Firewall and Updates

How to turn on or turn off the Internet firewall in Windows XP:

From Microsoft article 283673.

Disable Internet Connection Firewall in Windows XP or Windows XP SP1:

Note: A firewall is designed to help protect your computer from attack by malicious users or by malicious software. Malicious software includes viruses that use unsolicited incoming network traffic to attack your computer. Before you disable your firewall, you must disconnect your computer from all networks, including the Internet. To do this, follow these steps:

1. In Control Panel, double-click Networking and Internet Connections, and then click Network Connections.

2. Right-click the connection on which you want to disable ICF, and then click Properties.

3. On the Advanced tab, click to clear the Protect my computer or network check box.

Disable Windows Firewall in Windows XP SP2:

Note: A firewall is designed to help protect your computer from attack by malicious users or by malicious software. Malicious software includes viruses that use unsolicited incoming network traffic to attack your computer. Before you disable your firewall, you must disconnect your computer from all networks, including the Internet. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, click Run, type Firewall.cpl, and then click OK.

2. On the General tab, click Off (not recommended), and then click OK.

See link for more:

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=283673

For Win XP SP2:

Go to Start -> Control Panel -> Security Center

Automatic Updates and Firewall can be disabled there.

Dalton

To turn off the Windows Firewall, right click on Network Neighborhood, choose properties.
On the left, click on Change Firewall Settings, and you can turn the Windows XP firewall off there.

To turn off automatic updates, go to Control Panel, choose Security center, choose Windows Updates, and in that screen, you can turn off Automatic Updates.

Good luck.

If you have installed SP2, willcomp's answer is right on track and if you are on SP1 or no SP, then, dchamp's answer is the way to go.

I would not recommend you disabling either; ZoneAlarm is good (if you know exactly what those pop-up messages actually mean) but you would need to work at it to give you real benefits. The XP built-in firewall is reasonably good.

You could modify the windows update settings to the second option "Download updates for me, but let me choose....." - this will download your updates in the background and will notify you that they are ready to install. Select the ones you want and discard the others.