nOOb Question (Net-packet Related)

[Vuv]

Greetings!

I'm a total Avast! noob.  I just downloaded it not 8 hours ago and have spent the last 3 of them poking around looking and observing Avast!.  My wife and I were playing Dungeon Siege and noticed that since installing Avast! on my machine (Athlon XP 2400+ running XP Home SP2 fully updated, etc.) that inventory items which fall to the ground in the game do not appear on her machine (since mine is serving the game).  As a network admin, I began thinking that maybe Avast! is dropping the packets related to whatever item should be on her screen.  We also experienced an unusual amount of lag.  I shut down the network protection (which didn't work) and eventually all the real time scanning, which also didn't fix the problem.  I've since added the game folder (and subfolders) to Avast's list of exclusions.  Haven't tested it yet.  This leads me to my questions...

1) do you think this will solve my problem? 
2) exactly, how does the avast network scanner work?   
3) will the avast network scanner respect the packets created by the game .exe and support files after adding them to the exclusion list? (ie. ignore them and let them through without interference?)
4) is there a way (other than adding the files to avast's exclusion list) to configure the network scanner to ignore any game-related packets?  How does Microsoft's QoS protocol affect this?

I've skimmed the last few months of this forum and haven't found anything to help me out with this issue.  So far, I'm very impressed with what I've read in this forum in terms of friendliness and professionalism.  Koodos to the admins and the rest of the avast family...

Thanks in advance,

Vuv

[pk]

Hello Vuv,

It seems like you cannot give your stuff to your wife's character (isn't it rather a game rule then a bug in avast?  ).

Anyway,
1) No, I don't.
2) It scans incomming packets which are sent to particular ports (like 445, 135, 5554, ... where an attacker can exploit your computer; it's the protection against blaster/sasser/... worms). The network shield does not block or slow down other network traffic on other ports (NetShield ignores them).
3) Network Shield does not "sign" outgoing packets; you cannot also exclude a specific IP address on remote computer (it's dangerous).

According to Dungeon Siege Heaven's Seven Deadly FAQ, 5th Question - those ports are not handled by NetShield.
4) MS' QoS should be mainly used for VoiceIP related software, ..., etc (as far as i know)

[Vuv]

Thanks,

Always knew she was the perfect girl for me...   She suggested that it might be the mod we were playing, as opposed to anything relating to the network.  Sure enough, she was right; and after some testing I happily release avast of any blame whatsoever for my recent networking ills. 

I must confess that my knowledge of QoS isn't nearly what it should be, so you'll have to forgive my misunderstanding and I guess I should have it the DS Haven site before spouting off here...  Thanks again.   

Vuv