SOLVED Zone Alarm Extreme Security Suite

I am able to play the game (as well as Penelope 1.2) but only after I turn off Zone Alarm. It's not enough to simply snooze the firewall and antivirus, I must actually exit the program. I have manually set the application controls within the firewall to allow both inbound and outbound communication but still without success. Will I always have to turn Zone Alarm off to play ???

 

UPDATE - After much fiddling, I turned the antivirus/anti-spyware setting "off" but left the firewall setting turned "on" and I was able to launch the game. Apparently the firewall was allowing the program but the antivirus module was not. The only other option was to add the entire Age of Empires folder to the antivirus exclusion list but never scanning the folder for a virus is more dangerous than temporarily turning the antivirus off. Problem solved.