I've been investigating the use of IPSec to limit internet connectivity and access to ports. The OS that I have is XP Pro SP2 and I have free ZoneAlarm. I've managed to set it up to do what I set out to do (as an academic exercise!). Having reviewed some of the articles available, it strikes me that IPSec is almost exclusively used within Windows 2000 or either Windows 2000 server or 2003. I've found little which mentions XP explicitly.

I realise that Windows 2000 and Windows XP are derivatives of the same basic OS so I suspect that much of what's written about IPSec relating to Windows 2000 will apply to Windows XP, but is that supposition correct? I get the impression that IPSec is being phased out (or has been already) but is that true? If so, what's taken over in XP? I know that there's Windows Firewall but, having played around with it, it doens't seem as flexible as IPSec to block traffic or ports. Maybe I'm not using it correctly!

I realise that some of the command line utilities are specific to the various Windows operating systems that I've mentioned. The use of IPSec seems a really useful technique and I can hardly believe what I'm perceiving about it being less used within XP than Windows 2000. Is my perception correct?

Thanks for your time (and patience!).