android tethering

Good Evening,

I have spent about 48 hours trying to work this out with no luck. I am not sure if this is the best place to ask this question because I feel like I need to find someone that is an expert with 1) Windows XP, 2) wireless networking and 3) Android Wifi tethering.

If there is such a wizard, point me to the yellow brick road.

I have an Alienware laptop circa 2007. It runs XP professional. Exact hardware/software profile available upon request.

I have a Dell Latitude 630, property of the United States Government. It runs Windows 7 Enterprise.

I have a Toshiba Thrive Tablet that runs Android 4.0.4.

I have a Motorola Droid Razr HD Maxx cellphone that runs Android 4.0.4. and an application called "Wifi Tether." (available in the Google play store).

I am able to put the tablet and the government laptop on the Internet via the Wifi tethering app on my cell. They see the hotspot, acquire an IP, and surf with no issue. Which surprised me considering the army issue laptop is a paranoid schizophrenic.

However, my personal computer (the Alienware running XP) cannot. It connects to the network. It acquires an IP address. It sends about 80 packets and receives about 10. Then nothing. It is even more infuriating because it will occasionally garner enough packets to actually display the Google logo on google.com. And then the packet flow just stops. No browsing, no Pandora, no Steam. No happy times.

This machine has no problems connecting to a more traditional Internet connection: wired, wifi, free public, hotel room, airport, McDonalds, etc. And this phone has no problem putting other devices onto the Internet: friend's iPad, coworker's laptop, my desktop running windows 7 ultimate. There is just some disconnect between these two devices. If they had necks I would strangle them both.

Here are a few of the things I have tried that I can think of off the top of my head:

ON COMPUTER
uninstalled virus protection
disabled all firewalls
Set IP/DNS to auto
reboot


ON PHONE APP
cycled thru all 11 channels
turned off WEP security
turned off access control
toggled MSS clamping
toggled something called "routing fix"
cycled thru all of the device profiles
tried all setup methods: auto, WEXT (adhoc), Netd (master) Netd-Ndc (master)
toggled wifi driver reloading
toggled data
reboot

I also brought up the command prompt to compare the ipconfig/all readout on the government computer and the one on my XP machine (while both connected to the phone). One difference that I noticed was that on the computer with no problems, Net Bios over TCP/IP is enabled. On the computer that is not working, it is disabled. Naturally I tried to enable it, but I cannot get the readout to tell me that it is enabled. I go to the proper spot in the network properties (tried to post link but cant cause I have 0 posts; just google how to enable NetBIOS over tcpip XP and you can see something like what I did). Even after I try to enable NetBios like this, ipconfig/all is still saying disabled.

So the easy question: how do I make this machine enable NetBIOS over TCP/IP?

The hard question: if this doesn't work, how do I get Windows XP to play nice with my Android tethering app?

The goal is to put my XP machine on the Internet thru my phone via wifi (usb is impractical due to another long story) so if there is another way to accomplish this, I would welcome the work-around.

Best regards and thanks in advance,
Aaron
 
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