Thank you, Para-noid, for your comment, I will try Online Armor first.
As said: Comodo fw 6.1 seems not compatible with Avast 8 and XP pro, it kept biting even if avast 8 was uninstalled (after Comodo 6.1 has updated); still long boot time. I had to manually clean up the avast registry-keys and remove comodo 6.1 and clean up that installation. It behaved like a malware infection, this Comodo update.
The update also seems unavoidable: COmodo 6.0 has updated itself whilst auto-update were off on 2 computers; so I will have to get another firewall.
By now three computers have been infested by version 6.1 of Comodo, boot-up time on all of them have gone through the roof at 6,10 and 19 minutes (before: 30 seconds to 2 minutes), it is no workable situation.
I like Avast, have been using it for years, so the Comodo fw has to go.
Thank again for all repies.