windows firewall disconnects my wireless connection

[jmhal]

OK, here's my problem. I turned on my laptop today (HP dv6000t with windows xp home sp2) and the wireless network refused to connect. So after messing with my access point and the security keys I narrowed down the problem to my computer. Every once in a while a red "x" appears on the wireless network symbol on the system tray. After a bit of clicking and pressing random buttons I found that every time I turn windows firewall on or off, regardless of the setting it was on before, it corrects the problem and the red "x" goes away. However, if I let it go long enough I'm disconnected and I have to manually go back and reconnect then switch windows firewall off or on. Also when the red "x" first appears ,before it disconnects, I can still browse the internet even though it says I have no connection. As I said I have windows xp home edition with sp2 and I'm running the newest version of Mcafee, 9 I think, also running HP wireless assistant(manages whether the wireless and bluetooth are on or off) and have a linksys access point (wap54g) and I'm using wep 128 bit encryption with the MAC address filter on.
thanks in advanced for any help/ideas
Jason

[jmhal]

well I finally got sick of my internet being disconnected every 30 seconds and did a system restore. However, when I went to chose a restore point I found an interesting piece of software that had installed and prompted the creation of a restore point, software distribution service 2.0. So I selected that point figuring the installation of some "mystery" software would most likely be the root of my problem, and I was right. So far I have had no problems. After some searching I found it had originated from microsoft, or at least most people seem to think so since microsoft won't confirm it, along with the windows validation tool or some windows update. I also found serveral people saying they had similar trouble connecting to routers until they uninstalled it by system restore.