Yeah it sounds weird as I'm describing it. I promise it is much weirder when you are actually trying to using it. I stumped 2 of my college instructors tonight.

I've tried using Mozilla Firebird (one of the first things I tried actually) with the same results. Searching MS's support site is worse than a needle in a haystack. How do I describe this in a search function? I tried some key words such as "links not responding" and also googled support.microsoft.com. I couldn't find anything close to my problem.

This is frustrating, but I'm now to the point where I am ready to give up and shoot the thing. If it was an option, the machine would have a fresh OS installed by now. Thanks everyone for your ideas. There comes a time to just move on. Rather than have this destroy my sanity, I will just put it away. I must say, fixing problems with 3rd party apps on my Empeg is easier than windows problems (I usually have botched the install if I'm having problems).