I recently switched from Mcafee virus protection to the Symantec Client Security suite.  Although I was always a fan of Mcafee, I had heard good things about this suite, and wanted to get a more capable software firewall on my thinkpad.  I also hate Zonealarm and its obnoxious interface. 

All in all the swtich went pretty good.  Uninstall mcafee, install symantec, get used to pop-ups about what apps can and can't run.  The biggest issue I found, is suddently I couldn't get to any of the corporate sharepoint portal's.  So over the weekend I try, and fail to getinto my personal sharepoint portals. 

Come to find out, by default the app blocks sharepoint.  It's probably because of all the client side garbage it does, but its hard to tell that since IE reports a DNS error.  So after many trips to ping and nslookup, I tried disabling the firewall.  Low and behold, that works.  So whats the point of the firewall if I have to turn it off to do my work. 

So I start searching.  Nothing comes up on any of my searches, be it newsgroups, web, or Symantec's KB.  After fumbling around the UI for quite a bit, I found a place for Trusted Sited.  It reads as a way to give others access to your shared resources, but thought I should give it a shot.  Bingo. 

So, if you find yourself in this spot, do this. 

Open the firewall admin
Click Client Firewall
Click Configure
Click Networking tab and wait to switch (what are these, swing UI components?  ;)
Add the server name to this box (I added both netbios, and full DNS qualification)
Head back to your favorite portal.