I have a contractor who brings in his own laptop. The laptop is not a member of the domain, but the contractor does have a domain username/password. He also has the firewall client installed. When he tries to access his outside email (Outlook using POP3 & SMTP) the firewall client gets the red exclamation point; when move the mouse over it, it says "failed to authenticate". I've tried the identical settings on my own laptop (i.e. not a member of the domain, firewall client installed, accessing an outside mail server) without any problems. The only thing that shows up in the event log is: The description for Event ID ( 1 ) in Source ( WinSock Proxy Client ) cannot be found. The local computer may not have the necessary registry information or message DLL files to display messages from a remote computer. The following information is part of the event: OUTLOOK.EXE. He can use IE and his MSN Messenger without any trouble. No other clues. Any ideas? --Scott