Hi Rev, thanks for the reply. No, the network is set to private. I can see / connect to both Vista & XP machines on the network, but they can't PING me (although they can see me). There's no key at all under LSA as you suggested. Should I create one? I did wonder if there is a tool that is capable of scanning the Registry / Windows folder in order to repair all things network-related? I've done an Rkill scan & sfc / scannow, both of which completed & fixed things. Funny that the sfc said there were things that it couldn't fix but I saw no "fail" message inside the cbs log. The Rkill scan did show that wpcsvc was missing - and indeed all the various bits relating to the Parental Controls were missing. Does Vista Business have these controls built-in? I tried copying what appeared to be all the relevant files off my wife's Vista Home Premium PC to the corresponding folders on my PC, but when I try to register the wpcsvc I get an error. So either those files I copied won't work on Business or I missed some. A shame there's no way to get Vista to self-fix.

The reason that a format / reload is out of the question (for now) is 2-fold: 1) It's a huge job that I have neither the time nor desire to do right now. 2) I use Freehand extensively, and I remember it was a mission and a half to get it activated 5 year's ago (when I migrated from XP to Vista) - I imagine it won't be any easier and possibly harder, esp since Macromedia has been dead for so long and Adobe aren't known for their speed in dealing with old software. Not using Freehand is absolutely out of the question. I do have 3 logs (scesrv, Rkill & CBS) that might be useful relevant, but I don't think posting screeds of that here is of much use (is there a way to "attach" such things?).