[DsruptedOriginal]

Some time ago i noticed certain programs were failing in very strange ways, but i'm not sure if they were connected. The main example was firefox - whenever i open a copy of firefox (i copied it for testing purposes) from anywhere other than from My Documents of another user, it immediately appears with the message "Could not connect because the connection was actively refused". This is clearly false since when running a copy of the right account it works fine. Internet Explorer also seems to have failed (not to worry though, just another point).
The second main point is multiplayer games. I have Steam and run games off it. The strange thing is, games such as Team Fortress 2 and Garry's Mod work fine (note these programs were paid for - you'll see where i'm coming from), whereas mods such as Zombie Panic! Source or Eternal Silence fail. ZPS comes up with no specific error but instead shows "refreshing server list..." indefinitely (interestingly, the first time i ran ZPS, after closing it showed a dialog screen of Windows Firewall saying it has blocked hl2.exe - the main game executable - and asks what to do next. Clicking unblock, however, had no effect the next time i tried it). Eternal Silence, another, more recent mod, states that it "could not contact master server" - a similar problem.
When attempting to fix this, I disabled windows firewall. However, i noticed that a firewall was still active - Norton 360. I had hoped to disable or at least form an exception for these games, but upon attempting to open Norton 360 (Mainstub.exe), I can see the process running for a few seconds in process manager, but it thenafter quits, nothing having happened. When attempting to use liveupdate interactive to perhaps fix it, it says no components of Norton 360 could be updated (in so many words) due to a processing error.
I hope this is enough for you.
Any help would be extremely appreciated.
Thank you.

[Angela.Chelson]

Can you disable Norton in safe mode and then attempt a re-install? I'm sure there's other ways to fix it, but this might take you less time to figure out. If you're using Norton as a software and traffic firewall, I don't see any point in leaving the Windows Firewall turned on either.

[curadebt]

You should apply these things first but if not work then perform all the functions step by step to solve your problem.