thank you for some more paths to follow. unfortunately i don't have an old installer. i tried to change the configureation and i allpied all of the different ones that they had and still no dice. last night i tried to install it on my laptop that is a couple of years old and it worked. they are both connected to the same router and both with cables. I'll have to go through that link carefully to see what i can find out from that. the router is a linksys router and even though it works on the laptop, i'd rather it work on the pc (800-ish mHz vs alsmost 2 GHz).