as far as the installation problem, it's just that everytime I go to the writer manager, a message pops up which says define site, save it, choos area for buttons and launch again. it fails to do so.
as far as the website is concerned that would explain a few things. after a reinstall of menu writer validation fails, with an error message of firewall settings etc. All my browsers have had a problem with server not responding, only IE8 works if I reload the timed out page.