FYI, my system runs (public) on Win2003 SP1 with no problems at all. I did take down the firewall, but that's because I hate that paranoia crap. Windows is so hackable, if someone wants in bad enough, they're in.
Not sure if you mentioned, but is this a public server (connecting to eqemulator.net as an LS) or minilogin just for you and your LAN?
Good luck, let us know how you do. And what you do to solve it, so others may benefit.