I kept trying different things and seem to have stumbled into a solution... though I can't say why it worked.

After uninstalling anything related to Java ( JRE 1.3, JSDK, etc ) and installing just JRE1.4 there have been no more problems.

As distasteful as it may be, a black box solution is better than no solution.


Now if I can just get my Freenet node connected....