Dell pc. Vista Home Premium

Hi,
Im running Vista Premium on a Dell laptop through a wireless netgear router
(DG834Gv3) which is connected to Sony Vaio (XP) via an ethernet cable.
Problem is that I cant download onto the Vista laptop. I get the error
message *the connection to the server was reset *. Surfing and instant
messengers work fine however.
I have contacted netgear and they suggested...upgrading router
drivers...downloaded from their site...which i did and it downloaded fine.
Any advice as to why it downloaded from their site and yet I cannot download
anything else?
Any help appreciated. Thank you.