Hi, Gang...
Thank you all for checking in with your advice and information.
I don’t know the protocol for responding, so I’ll answer all of you in this one post.
Hi! to Bob and /szc\: You are the second and third persons to tell me about the deficiencies of the Windows firewall. Almost verbatim! I’m not sure the ISP guy was recommending I stick with it; my intention was only to see if it made a difference. Since it did, I assumed the problem was between Avast! and ZA. As noted in my previous post, that turned out to be the case, since adding the missing Avast! programs to ZA’s Program Control page allowed Avast! and ZA to talk to each other. With one possible exception. I have ZA Pro, and on the E-MAIL PROTECTION tab, instead of BASIC MAILSAFE SETTINGS, MAILSAFE is separated into INBOUND and OUTBOUND, so I set each of them to OFF. However, on the ANTIVIRUS MONITORING page, the following message appears: “There is no antivirus running on your computer that ZoneAlarm can detect. Make sure you are running antivirus software.” That seems odd, since all 5 recommended Avast! programs are active in ZA’s Program Control. I hope this warning doesn’t mean what it seems to mean.
Incidentally, I checked the Avast! icon’s menu, and there are no Stopped programs, so I guess that ZA’s Program Control corrections may have reset the Web Shield (if that was the one turned off) to “on.”
And hi! to Abraxas: I didn’t know for sure whether or not Counterspy would conflict with anything else, but I had it in the back of my mind to consider uninstalling it, anyway. Your information made up my mind for me, and it’s gone. I found 16 references to it left in the Registry. I don’t know if it’s worth deleting them.
I’d like to thank you all. I’m very pleased with the help you folks have given me.
Ciao!