For your general questions, the FAQ is always a good place to start:
Quote:
- What settings (i.e. ports, etc.) do I need to play online?
You can find a ReadMe in the Dangerous Waters installation folder which covers Multiplayer issues, however for convenience here are the highlights.
ReadMe - Multiplayer wrote: C. Multiplayer
1) The IP address shown in the Gameroom for the Host in Multiplayer is the local IP
address and may not be the IP address needed by other players to join your hosted
game. One method to determine the IP address for your computer with respect to
the rest of the Internet is to browse the website: http://www.myipaddress.com/
That website will display the IP address clients will need to use in order to join a
Multiplayer game. Also, if you have a firewall installed and active it may not allow you to
connect in a Multiplayer game.
2) SCS-DW uses DirectPlay 9.0c for its Multiplayer connectivity. In order to
connect to other players in a Multiplayer game, it may be necessary to open
ports in the range 2302-2400 in your firewall and/or router for TCP and UDP packets.
3) SCS-DW attempts to determine which network adapter your computer is using
when connecting in Multiplayer games. Sometimes this default selection is
incorrect and can prevent connections to/from other players in Multiplayer games.
In order to determine if this default selection is causing problems, first start
SCS-DW and "Host" a game. At the Gameroom screen, the adapter that was chosen
by SCS-DW will be displayed in the chat window. It is suggested that you write
this down. It may look similar to the following:
"Local Area Connection - IPv4 - 192.1.168.69"
Then using Windows Explorer, browse to the directory where SCS-DW was installed
(DEFAULT: C:\Program Files\Sonalysts Combat Simulations\Dangerous Waters)
and open the file "adapters.txt".
The following is an example "adapters.txt" file:
This file contains all adapters found on this system:
Local Area Connection - IPv4 - 192.1.168.69
The adapter that SCS-DW will pick is the "Local Area Connection" adapter, but in
some case there can be two adapters on a given system:
This file contains all adapters found on this system:
Broadcom Ethernet Adapter - 68.132.123.45
Local Area Connection - IPv4 - 192.1.168.69
In order to force SCS-DW to pick the "Broadcom Ethernet Adapter" you need to edit the
file "dangerouswaters.ini" as follows:
Scroll down inside the "dangerouswaters.ini" file to find the keyword
.AdapterName "IPv4".
In the example "adapters.txt" file above, the .AdapterName keyword
would need to be changed to
.AdapterName "Broadcom Ethernet Adapter".
After making the change, save the "dangerouswaters.ini" file. Next time
Dangerous Waters is run it will use the adapter that you specified.
It is recommended that the numerical address portion of an adapter be left out of
the .AdapterName. This will allow SCS-DW to still connect successfully if
your ISP changes the IP address being used. (This is common with cable/DSL Internet
connections.)
It might helps to open up port 6073 in addition to the ports 2300-2400 that the DW Readme suggests (link to MS knowledgebase with the info).- ========================
If using DirectX 8 or a later version...
========================
Connection // Ports for Client Configuration // Ports for Host Configuration
Initial UDP Connection // 6073 Outbound // 6073 Inbound
Subsequent UDP Inbound // 2302-2400 // 2302-2400
Subsequent UDP Outbound // 2302-2400 // 2302-2400
Open all these... for all protocols. 
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Going to the specific questions... You need to have the same patch as the player you are connecting to. Most players use 1.04 for DW and 1.08 for SC (the most recent). As for virus scanners, I don't recommend you engage in any virus scans during your game session since scanning is a very RAM and processor intensive process. If you actually meant to ask about firewalls, which is usually more of a concern to players connecting for MP sessions, then opening the ports listed in the FAQ should allow you to connect with the firewall up.