Teatimer, Windows ME crash (ZA problem)

[rainbow_warrior]

I was running the last version of Zone Alarm compatible with ME, when suddenly Firefox, and also IE, would usually time out (dial-up connection). Disabling Zone Alarm and even moving it to the recycle directory did not help. Finally I found out that old Zone Alarm was preset to expire on 15 July, as was the uninstall program. I restored Zone Alarm, set the clock back, and uninstalled it. Now the computer is much more unstable than before. In particular, Teatimer would always crash a few minutes after booting, usually with a big white dialog box with just the word 'Close.' Sometimes Firefox would crash about the same time, and I might get a message:

Application Error
Exception EAccessViolation in module TEATIMER.EXE at 00025E0C. Access violation at address 00425E0C in module 'TEATIMER.EXE'. Read of address FFFFFFFF.

I also frequently got messages of insufficient memory--cannot run program and have to reboot. Usually the whole system would lock up soon after this message without a reboot, which wasn't happening much before 15 July.

I am running Spybot S&D 1.6.2 with beta updates when they were coming. There is 512 mb of RAM. Since the new updater, the update will fail if Spybot S&D itself is running at the same time, but there is no problem to do the update and then close the updater before starting Spybot S&D.

I couldn't find anyone reporting a similar problem. For now I turned off Teatimer.

I guess I need to find a new firewall or switch to Linux.

[rainbow_warrior]

The machine has run for quite a while without having to be rebooted (only connected to the internet when in use). I'm not sure the connection between Zone alarm turning off and the teatimer. Could teatimer crash the machine from certain types of internet traffic that ZA was blocking?