Problems "seeing" and connecting to new home network

[Chloroform]

Hey all,

I recently set up a secure wireless network for my parents house as my dad got a new laptop and wanted one. His laptop is vista, as is mine, while my sister's desktop is xp pro like the family desktop (the only one with a land line).

Now then, I set it up through our family PC's router, a linksys etherfast 4 port switch. The family PC connects to the net fine, as does my father's new laptop. My laptop doesn't list the network, which makes sense as I hid it from broadcasting, but when I try to manually add it, the message comes back that the name already exists and would I like to change the name I'm trying to connect to or use it anyway. But no matter what I do it simply returns to the list of available wireless networks without the one I want.

My sister's desktop (XP pro) can see and join the network but it comes back with the message that there is limited or no connectivity, even though nothing has changed, save the wireless is now "secure" rather than insecure.

I added a passphrase and WEP keys in my router settings, renamed the network and turned off its broadcasting so that it doesn't appear automatically in the list of available netoworks.

What have I done wrong/is there anything I can do to fix this? Thanks so much for your time and I apologize for the somewhat lengthy post.

Chloroform