I have a problem with a Vista laptop (XPS M1530) In short, the vista PC cannot be seen by any other part of the network at home.....however, it can ping any hosts and the gateway of my Belkin router. The hosts however cannot ping the Vista PC.....nothing can. Also any games that we host on either PC cannot be seen, however if I hang my old XP laptop off the network all is well again and it can ping, be pinged and see any hosted game sessions. The Vista PC came with McAfee Security Center pre-installed and the Vista firewall says its switched off if I look in the control panel or under administrative tools (i also tried with it on for the record and any programs I tried allowed in and out) . I also disabled the Windows FirewI am assuming that most PC games when setup as a server send out broadcast packets that get picked up by the game browser on the opposing PC? Could this be the root of the evil? IsVista blocking broadcast packets of any kind? I have the LLTD responder installed on the XP PC's and they show up in the network map on the Vista PC, Also, if I reboot the Vista PCin Safe mode with network support, I can then ping it....cant test games because of no DX but I am guessing it would work. I have also tried via crossover cable forthe most direct connection possible. Is the Vista firewall truly disabled? I am trying to selectively disable services and startup items but so far no joy. There must be a simple solution to this daft issue surely ! any help would be great.

Hi Hermit_9536,As the Windows Vista machine can be pinged when booting into Safe Mode with Networking. I suspect that the culprit is the Antivirus program or Firewall because third party antivirus program and firewall will not be loaded automatically in Safe Mode with Networking. As a result, if it is available, I suggest temporarily uninstalling McAfee to check the result (Certain filter driver may still be active even though you turn off the antivirus program, so I suggest uninstalling it to narrow down the issue.) In addition, I would like to know why you considered to hang the old XP laptop off the network to test the issue. Does the Windows Vista computer connect to other machines through the XP laptop?