i am so happy to report that i found that i was able to get past the xp firewall problem via simply downloading mozilla-firefox (free) and while installing it designate it as your default browser! that's it man, just fire up firefox instead of your explorer (which you can still use with firewall intact when not using LW) and ta-da, i was able to connect in seconds to LW!

hope this will help other novices like me!

go girl go girl go girl go girl