Hi again all
Steve -- by all means, if you've been Internet-connected for any length of time without any sort of firewall protection up, turn on (or reinstall) whatever firewall option you have, and start some malware scans on a 'thorough' settings as the scanner will allow. Should you find evidence of serious infection, try the 5-Step Security Checklist here at Tech Support Forums ---
http://www.techsupportforum.com/secu...oval-help.html
It's not unusual for malware infection to tangle Internet & networking connectivity.
Should it turn out that your Ventrilo connectivity troubles are quite recent, and you come up clean in the 5-Step Security Checklist ... an option you have to restoring the settings that worked is to use Vista's built-in System Restore - selecting a restore point from before Ventrilo stopped working. Just type System Restore into the Start Search box on the Vista Start Menu . . . it has a decent Help file with reasonable detail. But scan for malware first. Only use System Restore if you are confident that the restore point is malware-free.
I like jc's recommendation to check the EventViewer logs, too, should you want to pinpoint if a particular error can reveal the cause of the mayhem. It's not a bad idea to get in the habit of inspecting the logs from time-to-time, to help get a jump on any problems that might be developing.
Best of luck
. . . Gary