Matthew,
I am running Windows XP Sp3.
I copied my $HOME/.ssh directory to my windows profile directory as you suggested, and while it didn't fix the error, it did change the error message a bit. It now consistently says:
Cannot initialize SFTP: Error waiting for SSH_FXP_VERSION packet. status=-33
debug3: key_read: missing whitespace
If I remove the new .ssh dir, the message consistently goes back to:
Cannot authenticate: Received error.
debug3: key_read: missing whitespace
I don't know if that tells you anything or not, but I appreciate your help.
Thanks,
Jerry