ZoneAlarm (Free edition) Crashes Windows on Media Sync

[Guest jmcqup]

After a terrible night of 10 minutes crashes and reinstallation of windows, I've slowly (and dumbly) worked out that ZoneAlarm causes Windows to crash after syncing just a couple of songs with Windows Media 10 and 11. (though it worked find for syncing with Outlook after configuring according to online guides).

Removing ZoneAlarm (free edition) seems to have solved the problem. Has anyone experienced the same?

And now, what firewall (freeware?) should I use instead? I can't bear another sleepless night just to sync a few songs. :)

cheers

-j