Hey I had this sort of problem recently. Turns out that Norton Internet Security 2005's Personal Firewall was hanging on shutdown. It also stopped programs from accessing the Internet (except IE) - turns out it listed programs more than once (for each updated version) - so I cleared the list and it now works fine.
I'm sure that the links above should give you a great deal of help. I actually remember visiting some of them when looking for answers myself (when I had the same sort of problem).
This will only work for Norton Internet Security 2005, as far as I know. There might be other complications if you also have Windows Firewall activated, in which case you should turn it off and left NIS do the work.
Open Norton Internet Security from the Desktop (or the NMAIN.EXE program)
On the main window, click Personal Firewall and on the right, click Turn Off. A dialog will ask you to turn it back on in an options list, so choose 'until next restart'.
Then click Configure, then click the Programs tab at the top of the new window.
Then, to clear the list, look at the scrollable panel near the bottom, scroll to the bottom of it, press SHIFT on your keyboard and hold it down, then scroll to the top with the mouse, click the one at the top of the list, and this will select all of them.
Click Remove, and a dialog may ask you to remove from all categories. Click Yes.
Then, close the window down, and from here you might want to restart.
When you're ready, turn Personal Firewall back on.
Remember that I only had this problem because every time I downloaded a new update of a program that access the Internet, for example, MSN Messenger, a new entry was added to the list in NIS. Because there was more than one entry for the same program, and because each one may have had different Internet Access settings, NIS got confused.
datapod
2 Intern
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371 Posts
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August 7th, 2005 11:00
http://aumha.org/win5/a/shtdwnxp.htm
shesagordie
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August 7th, 2005 17:00
Robert Cathles
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August 10th, 2005 21:00
shiner_guy
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August 10th, 2005 23:00
Robert Cathles
239 Posts
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August 11th, 2005 11:00
This will only work for Norton Internet Security 2005, as far as I know. There might be other complications if you also have Windows Firewall activated, in which case you should turn it off and left NIS do the work.
Remember that I only had this problem because every time I downloaded a new update of a program that access the Internet, for example, MSN Messenger, a new entry was added to the list in NIS. Because there was more than one entry for the same program, and because each one may have had different Internet Access settings, NIS got confused.
I hope you get your computer sorted.