It used to work on my old pc running XP but i recently upgraded and am now runnin Vista.
Therin lies your problem. From all the posts I've read on two boards about this topic, Freelancer can not be played in multiplayer mode on Windows Vista.. You should have waited at least till service pack one was released, that fixes many bugs and makes it truly a release instead of a beta test you have to pay for the license to use.
Sorry if I offend, but MS has typically released OS's too early, and then fix things as they crop up. XP sucked when I bought it two weeks after release, but now that they are moving on, its a really good OS as Microcrash stuff goes.. Millenium died due to early release, 98 was a sucky one at first.. it goes way back..
Personally I think they need to have a larger Beta test group, and or test it longer in beta before open release and sales. Unfortunately like all of us, MS is after the almighty dollar and must needs release things on a certain schedule in order to keep the stockholders happy.