HI,
I found a solution. It's simple, even mundane, but it works. Let me start by saying that I tried all the things mentioned above and even the alternate ipport solution documented in Novell's tid #10065725 and Computer Assoc. Doc # 19103. But when all was said and done, it still didn't work...so I started poking around in the manager itself and I noticed that although the host server was designated by ip address, the ip address was being treated as a string value (as a name) not as an ip address.
It seems the manager was still trying to resolve the NDS common name. So I checked my DNS and it was correct. Just for kicks I inserted an entry for the server in my hosts file and, voila! It works now. I don't even get a login screen anymore. The manager just connects. So try adding the ip address to your hosts file in \\winnt\system32\drivers\etc and be certain you use the nds common name as well as the ip host name in the hosts portion. For example:
10.2.2.1 hostname ndsname
BDJones, MCNE, CNE4/5/6, CDE, MCSE, CISSP