need a little help here on age of empires 2

gunna try and get all the info down here,

im having problems conecting my age of empires 2 to my father in law using the ip adress is it me being a compleate mong or is there somethink wrong?

also on his msn it comes up in the action menu to play the game using msn messender however mine does not work
im using a windows xp and with a broadband connection he is using the same
and i have got the game in stalled and the cd rom in.

please any ideas would be most helpfull
thanks

More information would be helpful. I expect you are not in the same house and are trying to use the Internet to play this game.

MSN connections seem to be one of the easier ways to connect. In order for it to work, you have to be using the same version. So ask him which version number he is using and you get the same. Better yet, both of you get the latest version.

I have had problems connecting via Internet and expect it is something that Windows security updates have done. Like shutting down some ports.
If you are in the same house, you can do as suggested and make a LAN. The games seem to work under those conditions.

Visit Microsoft online help/support and look up the subject. It works pretty good for problems, if you understand computer networking.

Good luck, I know it can be frustrating......