I'm really suprised that your University's support staff can't knock this one out in about 2 minutes. If you're sure that the server name and IP are correct and know that the server should respond to ping requests but yet it doesn't reply, traceroute to the IP and see where it hangs up. tracert . Where your last successful reply was is going to be where the issue is route-wise. If the traceroute completes successfully, make sure that the foldername that you are trying to connect to actually exists on the server with the Univ. Good luck. Another call to the Univ Help Desk or a visit to the hall where the computer science guys hang out may not be a bad idea if you want to get it fixed quickly.