Unable to connect

Hi,
I am unable to connect at all and the log says:

[13:09] No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it
[13:09] Cannot login waiting to retry (30s)

A friend can connect OK with SFTP using the same credentials but there doesn't seem to be an export settings menu option so that I could have identical settings to his. I am also unable to login to any of the included ftp sites that are listed in favourites. I've looked around and as some posts have suggested, have disable my firewall completely, not used passive mode and have stopped the Application Gateway Layer service too. All unfortunately to no avail. Not wanting to go my friend's house everytime I want to use ftp at a I wondered if anybody has any ideas at all as to what the problem could be.
Cheers
ArtySin