So...reset the laptop, re-installed everything, installed new client...
SUCCESS! I'm assuming it was the client as everything else was the same (kept copies of json, ini and eqhost files from previous server install). That was the Secrets of Faydwer client, installed from discs.
Huge thank you to Huppy, Uleat, phantomghost, kokey98,
Scorpious2k, & Kattamaran.CH for pitching in with debugging. I played for a bit last night (haven't played since planes of power), have a few tweaks to make I think to get things running a bit smoother...I'm getting booted to character select every 3rd death or so, random "refreshing" on client (could be system resources?), sound effects are not working and not sure if spell effects are working (could see NPC's casting, but no spell effects if I cast from first person). But I did get to play
.
Thanks again everyone!