“Network error: connection refused” OK, normally this means I got something wrong… double check everything, try again… still no go. I’ll spare you the play by play and outline the situation as it stands:

I can connect to this host via ssh on the non-22 port from any other machine I try, using openssh clients or even the same version of PuTTY I tried and failed with from my XP machine.

I can connect to this host IF I set the sshd to listen on port 22. I tried several other ports and none worked for this particular situation.

I can connect to virtual hosts running on this host (at different IP addresses) on this alternate port just fine, even using PuTTY from my XP machine.

I can connect to it using WinSCP, and the WinSCP terminal. I cannot connect using SSHWinClient.

I’ve stripped my normal tcpwrapper and ipf rules for testing and stopped my Windows Firewall (all that should be running as a firewall on this machine.) Still no dice.

All behaviour on the XP box is the same on multiple user accounts.

My server’s auth.log doesn’t even show the connection attempts… so I’m pretty sure it isn’t a configuration on the server, or protocol conflict, but something on the XP box itself… nothing user specific, something OS in scope. I haven’t tried booting knoppix or ubuntu to see how they would fare yet, so I’m not sure it isn’t something beyond the OS, although what that could be is beyond me anyway.

Anyway, I’ve decided to get some real work done instead of trying to debug this right now, since I can get around it. But I’m all ears on suggestions on what to investigate next…