Well, I don't see it as not working : it just works fine on Windows 7, "GNU Emacs 24.0.50.1 (i386-msvc-nt6.1.7601) of 2011-03-10 on ROCKHOPPER" and some not too old slime (2010-12-09). The REPL buffer opens up, and the connection is made. So there is something else preventing it from happening in your case.
Fabrice (progn (load "c:\source\lisp\lib\slime\swank-loader.lisp" :verbose t) (funcall (read-from-string "swank-loader:init")) (funcall (read-from-string "swank:start-server") "c:\Users\Fabrice\AppData\Local\Temp\slime.6528" :coding-system "utf-8-unix"))
This is SBCL 1.0.37, an implementation of ANSI Common Lisp. More information about SBCL is available at http://www.sbcl.org/.
SBCL is free software, provided as is, with absolutely no warranty. It is mostly in the public domain; some portions are provided under BSD-style licenses. See the CREDITS and COPYING files in the distribution for more information.
This is experimental prerelease support for the Windows platform: use at your own risk. "Your Kitten of Death awaits!" * ; loading #P"c:\source\lisp\lib\slime\swank-loader.lisp" ; loading #P"c:\Home\.slime\fasl\2010-12-09\sbcl-1.0.37-win32-x86\swank-backend.fasl" ; loading #P"c:\Home\.slime\fasl\2010-12-09\sbcl-1.0.37-win32-x86\swank-source-path-parser.fasl" ; loading #P"c:\Home\.slime\fasl\2010-12-09\sbcl-1.0.37-win32-x86\swank-source-file-cache.fasl" ; loading #P"c:\Home\.slime\fasl\2010-12-09\sbcl-1.0.37-win32-x86\swank-sbcl.fasl" STYLE-WARNING: redefining EMACS-INSPECT (#<BUILT-IN-CLASS T>) in DEFMETHOD ; loading #P"c:\Home\.slime\fasl\2010-12-09\sbcl-1.0.37-win32-x86\swank-gray.fasl" STYLE-WARNING: Implicitly creating new generic function STREAM-READ-CHAR-WILL-HANG-P. ; loading #P"c:\Home\.slime\fasl\2010-12-09\sbcl-1.0.37-win32-x86\swank-match.fasl" ; loading #P"c:\Home\.slime\fasl\2010-12-09\sbcl-1.0.37-win32-x86\swank-rpc.fasl" ; loading #P"c:\Home\.slime\fasl\2010-12-09\sbcl-1.0.37-win32-x86\swank.fasl" WARNING: These Swank interfaces are unimplemented: (BACKGROUND-SAVE-IMAGE DISASSEMBLE-FRAME EXEC-IMAGE INTERRUPT-THREAD RECEIVE-IF SAVE-IMAGE SEND SLDB-BREAK-AT-START SLDB-BREAK-ON-RETURN SPAWN) ;; Swank started at port: 3485. CL-USER>