You can close ports by disabling the associated application/service. Otherwise you
can block access to ports with a firewall. Ideally I like a hardware firewall if you
are using a cable/dsl modem. Even the cheap NAT routers do an excellent job for the
average home user. If that is not possible use one of the many free firewalls
available for personal use. Zone Alarm works well for the novice user while others
such as Kerio and Sygate have more features but in my opinion are more difficult to
set up. There is a real nifty program from Sysinternals called TCPView that can help
determine which application/service is using a particular port. SpyBot Search and
Destroy also has some nifty tools in the advanced/tools mode that can help track down
processes and startup programs--- Steve
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/source/tcpview.shtml
http://mvps.org/winhelp2002/unwanted.htm --- info on parasites and SpyBot here. Just
be sure to download updates for it also.
