any help on why i get a 1017 trying to log to server?

It's broke?

nope

But with no help from SoE... i uninstalled firewall and all EQ worked. So I reinstalled firewall and EQ still worked. EQ said just uninstall your firewall cause its the problem and all will be ok, lol.

well all in all i'm ok now but why cant they just tell me what changed that my firewall might all the sudden have a problem with? i tried to explain that i thought my firewall was important to me for other reasons. EQ didnt care.

But for any others out there with similar problems... might be your firewall. And EQ wont give you any help other then to disable it (they even told me to disable my windows XP srevice pack-2). I know it's a pain to uninstall and reinstall but if you have this problem it's up to you to decide if it's worth it to play EQ.