This is an extremely long shot in the dark, but what Firewall have you got, Hook? Norton Firewall has been doing some funny (peculiar) things since one of the Live Updates was a bit iffy, but it's mainly affected ME machines. I did, however, find on mine (XP), that I couldn't access one of the Admin sections on the forum, and after a lot of head scratching, it turned out to be NF that was causing the trouble. I have now switched to Sygate, and have no problems, with an added bonus that my Internet browsing speed has significantly improved.