I have been trying to use virtual PC 2007 with DSL and putty in order to create an ssh conenction so I can use remote desktop through my works firewall to (obviously) connect remotely successfully. I have already changed the port in regedit in windows xp, but when I boot virtual pc and start my damn small linux ISO, then log into root with sudo su in the terminal and run the command "ssh dfm@(insert IP address here)" terminal gives the response "connection to port 22 failed, connection refused." I have enabled port 22 as an exception in windows firewall, but to no apparent success. Any help would be greatly appreciated, as I am a noob to linux and ssh at that.
Thanks!

Can you please say a little more about your setup? I'm confused which computers are doing what from where.

Try using putty from you windows computer to connect to the server. This will let you know if the server is accepting connections. Also you don't need to open port 22 on your windows computer because this isn't the port the outgoing ssh connection will use. Also what type of networking are you using for VPC....bridged or nat?

If he's trying to come IN to the VPC from outside Windows, port 22 would need to be open, probably in both bridge and NAT cases.

I realized what has happened. I needed to make an exception to port 22 on windows norton 360 (completely forgot that it has a built in firewall. Piece of...). However when I type in ssh dfm@(insert IP address here) it now goes to a blank line instead of stating the error with the port. Having never used SSH before, what do I do now?

Can you please post the output of ssh -v <...>?

I'm getting Connection refused errors on Port 22 as well. My setup is a little different, though. I'm connecting to a portable divice thas has an embedded Linux OS inside.

I've connected the ethernet cable; I know the IP address; I am able to ping that address in a DOS command window; but can't connect to it via PUTTY. I get the Connection refused popup.

I can use PUTTY to connect to my own VM implementation of Linux UBUNTU with no problem so I presume that PUTTY is OK.

Anyone have an idea about this? It seems that there is a common problem that seems to rear its ugly head under different scenarios.

Thanks in advance,
Paul