Jack:

Thank you for the text and the links. I've scanned the pages to your
links, and will have to explore this more thoroughly when I have some
more time.

The main problem is that the instructions don't have the first link:
"tell me how my existing system is set up". That leads naturally to
what's wrong. Crawling manually through all these hoops is what most
of us spend an inordinate amount of our time doing. Starting out with
the directive "Disable Software Firewalls, Virus programs, Anti
Trojan, or any other program that intercepts Internet traffic while
Configuring, or Problem Solving your Network Settings" may be one way
to start, but it violates the first rule of diagnosis, which is
"disturb nothing". It's like entering into a crime scene and cleaning
things up and leaving your fingerprints all over everything and
disrupting the whole scene. One objective may be to get the room back
into livable order, but that wasn't my primary objective here. Sorry
if I didn't make that clear.

What I'm trying to get beyond is this very same trial-and-error
approach in these pages. It is incredibly time consuming, and it's
hard to say what learning takes place that can be passed on to the
next person who sits in your sysadmin seat.

Thanks, though.

-- Roy