EA Games Conflicting With XP SP2 Firewall

The consumer version of the Windows XP Service Pack 2 is due out soon, and one of the new advancements will be an internal firewall that will flag a wider range of data than previous screens. Microsoft has announced that this will have an impact on a number of internet accessible programs, including a number of the recent online enabled PC games by Electronic Arts. Although some workarounds and patches are expected, many users will have to disable the feature to make their old games playable. This problem will be somewhat lessened as more people transition to routers with built in firewalls and as newer games are built around the SP2 architecture. A complete list of the affected software can be found here.

Command & Conquer Generals, Command & Conquer Generals Zero Hour, Earth & Beyond v.1, Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2, SimCity 4 v1.0, Freedom Force 1