Command & conquer- disconnected

 I try to start a game with people online, Im fine
in the game lobby before the game is started but when they start it I get this screen that pops up (Unable to connect to players). I turned off my crapy windows firewall witch didnt help, I turned it back on and put generals in the firewall exceptions list but to no avail, I also made a firewall port and typed the port number in the optional firewall port thing in generals but it didnt work and I turned off my antivirus but I still get disconnected. have any of you guys had this problem if so did you fix it and if you fixed it what did you do.

and I have a fast connection. 5MB cable

Do you have a router?
When I got battle for middle earth I had to open up a port to allow me to play online.

well yeah I got a router but theres no way that I know of to change its settings theres no buttons on it and the cd it came with has nothing to do with the router (its something with the company, I searched all over it for a install thing to control the router but couldnt find one) its a netgear BTW, its a good router and it doesnt slow down my connection at all. It would be a bitch to just hook the cable from my router to my computer cause its really hard to get to and then I would have to put it back to the router again, arg. so I've been testing the game and so far I've only been able to connect to one game (in witch I lost) with the firewall off the fire wall on or off doesnt seem to make a difference. and also the instructions that came with the router said somthing about a switch on the back but I examined it vigorusly and found nothing. heres some detailed info on the router:  Double 108 Mbps Wireless Firewalled Router (I dont use the wireless part never could get it to work) and it says its good for online gaming, it says a whole bunch of other crap but its worthless . thats all that it really says. And I checked all over the C&C site but I didnt find anything, so hope you guys can do something with this.

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>>It would be a bitch to just hook the cable from my "router" to my computer

Instaid of router it should be Modem

>>3
I'm too lazy to read all the text (It's 4am here) so I hope you haven't tried this out.

You can access the router configuration menu with an IP address like 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.2.1 (take a look in the router manual). There you can open some ports and do other stuff (like activating your Wireless LAN)
If your router has nothing like this, then plug it out, throw it away and buy a new/better one.