Hey Orac,
Back on 20 Aug you wrote
You can enable/disable ports directly in the properties of your network card even before they get to the firewall. Be careful you don't disable ports you might need. TCP/IP filtering.
A bit later I said I couldn't find TCP/IP filtering in XP Home. Well, I didn't look hard enough. It's as plain as day in the MS Technet article you linked to, dunno why I couldn't follow it then.
My solution was to have Zone Alarm not permit Windows Explorer to act as a server - explorer was keeping port 1024 open. So far there have been no known repercussions.
Thanks for trying to help an illiterate
AA