Recording LP in stereo becoms mono

[stereoptic]

Hi to all - I am first time poster and a newbie Audacity user.

I am having a problem very simialr to the original poster. When I use Audacity on my Dell / Vista laptop, the LP plays stereo, but the file is being transferred as mono. When I am connected to my IBM / XP Pro laptop the file is transferred properly as stereo.

Using the hints above did not help. I noticed that the mix pulldown is not active on the Vista like it is on the XP. I can not choose 'line input' like I can on the XP because the pulldown is not active. I tried to review the microphone setting inthe control panel as suggested above, but all I see are two entries (one for a USB microphone, one for something else -Direct microphone I think?) No settings for stereo on either one.

in Audacity on the Vista laptop, under user preferences the only USB Codec choice is "microphone USB Codec", I don't see an option like I have on the IBM XP.

Any help would be appreciated.
thanks - Donald