Can't open port in WinXp!

Hi everyone, I've been reading about this opening ports problem on everything I could find on google, but I have still not found a definite answer for my problem.

Here's my situation... I'm trying to create a "messaging" like server using Visual C#... First, I created a test client and test server program which basically just sends a string to the server then receives a string back and ends.

It seems to work when I open the server, and the client connects to localhost:17777 which is a random port I picked. But, when I use the IP address for the client to connect to, it gives an exception that it couldn't connect. I'm sure it's the correct ip

Now, i'm using Win XP Pro. I DID have the XP firewall running, then turned it off. Either one did not help. I added the port to ports that should be open. But it still didn't help.

Running netstat -an states that port 17777 is LISTENING.

I can't think of what else i've tried...

Now, my guess is that something internal in WinXP is causing all these ports to be CLOSEd. But I have no idea how to open just this ONE simple port. Can anyone shed some light? I heard something about IIS but I don't know what that is..could that be it?

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

Frank

only got inspirational advice, keep trying, and maybe try ipconfig to double check that ip and maybe check the router's rules or log file.