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as far as the patch If I remember right it was the patch from this web page
Well this page offers both the official patch and the fan made community patch. If your game allows higher resolution than 640x480 then you are using the fan made community patch. The reason I am asking is that subsequent testing has showed the fan made patch has issues online if the game is installed in C:\Program Files (x64) (but it's fine if it's installed somewhere else).
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and as far as being able to type messages in multiplayer screen we can type them but the other person does NOT get to see them and then eventually the joining person gets kicked out
Sounds like the games are still not communicating. If it's not the above problem (installation folder) then either not all ports have been opened correctly or there is some hardware issues. Do you know the brand and name of your modem and/or router?
Another thing: GameRanger does a good job automatically opening the ports when people play. The downside of the program is that it doesn't have a proper lobby, so people cannot gather around looking for a game. A person has to host and then the lobby shows up in gameranger and other people can join. I know a few guys who are playing this way because they have no access to their routers and cannot make the game work in any other way.
https://www.gameranger.com/If you guys do try out gameranger, make sure you restart the computer after installing it. The multiplayer game won't launch correctly unless your reboot.