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As posted earlier, I finally got my DreamBox 500S (DB500S) intalled at home yesterday. Installing Satellite dish was done smoothly as the installer knew well what he was doing.

The problem is the networking part. The DB500S needs to (always-on) connect to the Internet. I didn’t seriously plan in advance how to connect the DB500S to my home network untill yesterday. Just a rough thought for temp configuration using my IBM ThinkPad running Windows XP Professional SP2 equipped with Wireless LAN and Ethernet LAN as a simple IP forwarder between the DB500S and the Internet Gateway.

This should be quite easy for me considering from the fact that I’m quite expert on networking stuff.

Oh boy…the fact is so hurt. I have to confess that I spent about 4 hours before I could figure out the mess of having ZoneAlarm running on my Windows XP. At first, I tried Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) my DB500S was still sucked. I moved to Bridge. No, no, no DB500S was still silent. I moved again to IP forwarder but no alive signal came from the DB500S. And it was 1 am. dark. I was so creepy and sleepy figuring what I did wrong.

Hey, don’t even think that why don’t I shut down ZoneAlarm. You may say “Hey! You should have thought about this if you claim you’re an expert!!!”. Well, I did. Shutting down ZA 100 times, Windows Firewall 1000 times, checking Windows Registry 10,000 times, restarting Windows XP a million times - Nothing made significant change.

It was almost 3 am. when I decided to try for the last time before went to bed. Uninstalling ZoneAlarm is my last chance. WTF, it worked magically! I needed to change nothing. I did it right only wrong with ZoneAlarm.

Ok. It was close to 4 am. that I was still playing my DB500S happily. The last chance was renewed. *v*’

But … do you believe that I made twice mistakes in a night? I can’t believe it myself too. I wanted ZoneAlarm back to my PC. I installed it again. WTF, ZA installing process kept complaining that I had to shut down TrueVector service before I could install ZA again. Hell, I couldn’t find the TrueVector service as it was removed.

5 am. I was seeking for help from the Internet. Someone might face this problem before me. Hell, I had to boot my Windows in safe mode and manually delete some files in the Windows system directory before I could install ZA the second time

5.30 am. I was so tried and sleepy after ZA was installed successfully. And “YES” my DB500S lost the Internet connection again. I was back to the beginning point.

Give up ZoneAlarm! I just told myself before knocked down on bed.

Now my DB500S is connecting to Internet gateway thru normal Ethernet LAN cable. It’s a temp solution. The cable is wired ugly but it simply works. My final solution is buying a Wireless Ethernet Bridge device and get rid of the ugly LAN cable.