XP Media Center Sp2 will not open port - I have tried everything

[qeorge]

My woman and I both run / love uTorrent. I am running an old version of XP (no SP's - I know that's a terrible idea), she is running XP Media Center SP2.

I've opened / forwarded ports on our router (NetGear WPN824) for both machines. My machine works wonderfully, all ports open properly. Her computer, however, will not open a port.

I've been working on this for literally months, and i've googled til my fingers bleed. I have attempted to completely disable her Windows firewall, by editing her group policy via gpedit.msc, and when I go to her firewall settings, it says the firewall is disabled.

I have also tried leaving the firewall on and letting uTorrent add itself to the exceptions list. I have also tried turning UPnP off and on for both the router and the client, no difference.

I consider myself to be reasonably intuitive and computer savvy, but I absolutely cannot figure this one out.

Is there anyone who might be able to help?

Thank you.

[Ultima]

You didn't forward an identical port to both computers, right?

[qeorge]

Thanks for the reply Ultima.

I have tried the same port, different ports, any combo I could think of. I even tried turning my uTorrent off and setting hers to the port I was using which was working, no dice.

Interestingly enough, if I turn on my firewall, or close uTorrent, the port closes immediately. I thought this might mean that uTorrent is opening the port via UPnP, but I have disabled UPnP with the same result.

Thanks for giving it a shot. I'm really mystified here.

[Ultima]

Confuzzling >.>

What modem are you using? What security softwares?

[qeorge]

I'm using a Motorola Surfboard cable modem which comes included with Time Warner's Roadrunner.

Router is a Netgear WPN824.

I am not running any security software on either machine other than any firewalls that the router / windows xp include by default. To the best of my knowledge, both XP firewalls are disabled.

Thanks for sticking with this, I have tried everything I can think of, and can't figure it out. I'm going to have her install uTorrent 1.5 and see if that helps at all. Is there any particular version of the 1.5 series that is best?

[Ultima]

... I really want to blame the Surfboard right now, but it doesn't make much sense, since you can forward to at least one computer properly... Even still, it's the only thing I can see being problematic at this point ;o

There's only one release of 1.5 in the 1.5 series, but I doubt that even switching to 1.5 would help matters much. Just for testing's sake, have you tried connecting her computer directly to the modem to see if ports are still closed?

[quincy805]

Since you've been working on this for awhile, I suggest you try the PCConfig utility at http://www.portforward.com/

[qeorge]

Thanks guys. I will try both.

I had her try v1.5.437 (from FileHippo), and it didn't make a difference, no surprise. Our router was able to see her UPnP port mapped however, which was the point of trying v1.5.

Is there a trial version of PCConfig?

I really appreciate you folks sticking with this.