I thought this would be a good place to get help with this problem I am having. Thanks for looking.

The problem starts:
I wrote some code for a simple feed back form. When the user hits the submit button it redirects them back to the same page with the information submited. Here is the code i wrote to handle it:

<?
#grab the name from the form
$retrieve = $_GET['sender_name'];
#if the form is empty dont do anything
if($retrieve != '')
{
$to = "dyeworks@fastmail.fm";
$subject = "Web Site Feedback";
$mailheaders = "From My Web Site <> \n";
$mailheaders .= "Reply-To:";
$mailheaders .= $_GET['sender_email'];
$mailheaders .="\n\n";
mail($to, $subject, $_GET['sender_message'], $mailheaders);
$msg = "Your E-Mail has been sent<br/>";
}
?>

Unfortunatly, I get an error.
I get this error:

Warning: mail(): Failed to connect to mailserver at "smtp.comcast.net" port 25, verify your "SMTP" and "smtp_port" setting in php.ini or use ini_set() in E:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache2\htdocs\contactus.php on line 11

I'm hosting my site off my own computer using apache, mysql, and php. I've checked on my mail server setings and I'm pretty sure the problem is linked to Zone Alarm Which I have running as well. I think/know it's blocking the ports I need. The funny thing is I had a simmilar script running before with no problems. Now I'm having problems possibly from an update. If I shut down ZA everything runs fine. I've tried opening up TCP/UDP port ranges, but it doesn't seem to help.

Anyone have any suggestions?? Thanks!

Open port 25 in ZA ?

Are you planning to run this code on a home PC, or are you just testing?

If you do plan to open up outgoing TCP port 25, I would recommend you restrict it to your app only -- which could be your entire web server.

Does mail() attempt to use sendmail in a Windows environment? Are you using the sendmail app from http://glob.com.au/sendmail/?

On windows, you must use a SMTP server top send mail using the mail() command.
This means that the server's PHP.ini must supply the username and password to sent those messages (if a login is required, of course. Not the case everywhere)

Sending the mail is done by "speaking" directly on a TCP session with the server. For this to append, a connection must first be opened to the server.
This is where your problem is, your PHP server cannot talk with a mail server (or the mail server refused to talk with it) an thus, no mail could be sent.