OK let me turn the apple cart over. I battled for more than six weeks to no avail to get LW connected. My ISP assured me he was not blocking me and yet no connection.Not even WinMX was connecting. Reading through sites as well as Microsoft forum it appeared that I might have a Winsock problem. I ran a repair WinXP Pro install and since then I have been up and running with no problems. I do not suggest everyone to do this but I am sharing my success with you. I run with Windows Firewall and Microsoft Anti Spyware on. For what it's worth I am sure everybody knows the importance of Winsock.dll etc