Kilyle

I recently got a new laptop and installed e-sword 10.2.1, but can't get any of the downloads to work.  After trying a few things I saw online for people with similar problems, I contacted the guy in charge of e-sword and he said this:

Something in Windows 7 is blocking e-Sword's access to the Internet.  Sometimes it is simply Windows permissions, other times it may be needing to add an exception for e-Sword in the firewall's options.

Maybe I'm being incredibly dense, but I don't understand how this could be the case when I don't even have Windows Firewall active.  So I am hoping someone here can walk me through the steps to solve this problem.  The following is any information I think might relate to this issue, any factors that popped up in various discussions of problems with the downloader:

The Downloader Itself: It shows lists of modules both free and premium just fine.  I added a lot to the list and then opened the Download menu and hit Start.  It greyed out the "Start" option as well as the one to clear the list, but everything stayed at 0% and this has not changed over the many times I tried various methods to get it started.

Security Measures: On the advice of Kim Komando, I have 1 antivirus, 1 firewall, and multiple (3) antimalware programs, specifically Avast, ZoneAlarm, then Malwarebytes, Spybot, and Spywareblaster.  Some of them have immunization techniques which I have used to prevent malware from getting a foothold on my new system.  I have used all these programs previously on other systems (wait, I think ZoneAlarm is new to me), and haven't had many problems.  In part I choose them because of information on the BleepingComputer website, and when I chose Avast it was after looking up which free antivirus programs came in high on ranked lists coupled with which ones didn't use too many resources or bog down the computer.

When I heard that the firewall might be the problem, I deactived ZoneAlarm and Avast entirely (man was that annoyingly difficult with Avast - I had to uncheck some internal protection and then Task Manager zap it) and tried the internal downloader again - no dice.  However, I did not think at the time to try to disable any of the immunizations.  It looks like Spybot is actually running (shows up as an icon) and I didn't stop it at the time; I might try the disable thing again and see if Spybot's deactivation makes a difference.  The other two programs do not show up as icons so I would tend to think they aren't running although it's possible they're just hidden.

Permissions: I tried running the program in Administrator mode.  That did not change anything.  (I kind of think administrator mode is stupid, but eh, if I felt that strongly about not being countermanded by my own computer I'd probably be running Linux.)

Location: I do not ever install a program in its default location because its default location is stupid.  Having a ton of programs all crammed into Program Files just leaves me unsure where to find anything and I hate searching for things in a giant list.  Therefore it is installed under C:\Apps\E-Sword and I seriously hope this isn't the problem because I loathe the thought of changing my basic setup here.

Um... can't think of anything else to add right now.  Hope you can solve my problem because I really want to have Bible access (to more than just the King James!) even when the internet is down.  Thanks!