Not connected to maxima

Hi

My settings:

    XP Pro
    wxMaxima 0.8.6
    XMaxima 5.22.1 (also tried with other versions of Maxima: 5.18 and on)
    Firewall de-activated
    AntiVirus  de-activated
    DEP set accordingly
    Full path of XMaxima in wxMaxima is OK   (And anyway, it is
'greyed out'; impossible to edit)


My problem:

I try a simple summation (or anything else) in wxMaxima, I get the message:
   "Not connected to Maxima"

In XMaxima  (Maxima Primer, Getting Started),
if I double-click on:

      1.	integrate(1/(1+x^3),x)

I get the error message:

     Failed to eval region
     Failed to eval region
         while executing
     "error [mc "Failed to eval region"]"
         (procedure "doInvoke" line 50)
          invoked from within
     "doInvoke .browser.t1.text @111,162 "
         (command bound to event)

I tried:
     wxmaxima_debug_dump_output
I get no message.


I tried to run in console:
      C:/program files/Maxima-5.22.1/bin/maxima

A blank window pops up and disappears after a second or so; Maxima
does not start.


I tried everything I could find in the Maxima Archives and other
places in Google. No success.

Thank you for your time,

Len


P.S.  Some time ago, I was using Maxima 5.18 on Vista. Was working fine.
        Could it be some other settings of XP Pro that I got wrong?