I'll get into the game, enter the username and password and click Log In, the game will lock up at the "Connecting" screen. I can't move the mouse or anything. I have to turn my computer off every time.

I checked the system top to bottom. Nothing. This happened after getting the 1.7 update.

Any help is appreciated.

-Thanks

Could well be a video driver issue. Please give details regarding your OS and video card. Try getting the latest video driver, or rolling back to a prevous one if you have the latest.

Do you have firewall software? I have Norton and have found that some updates have triggered the automatic prompt to allow, but that others have not (though this seems to be fixed for the 2005 version). You may need to manually configure your firewall if so. Try shutting it off temporarily and logging in to see if that's the problem.

XP Home SP2. ATI Radeon 9800 Pro which is totally up-to-date.

Yea, I have Norton 2005 along with ZoneAlarms Pro. I'll try everything you have suggested. Can't at the moment though, must be going. Thanks a bunch.

Try running VO in Windowed mode. Vendetta doesn't like to give up focus to other windows, so things like the ZoneAlarm "allow this program to access the Internet" dialog box get stuck in an infinite loop where they are perpetually requesting focus, and perpetually being denied. The same thing happens with Half-Life 2.