Your first post shows mongo failed to connect
Your last but one post says you are getting same results as first post
What i understood is you are facing issues in connecting to mongod
Now i understand what you meant by “awkward way of connection”
On one session you are starting mongod and in another session you are trying to connect using mongo which you do not want
That is how it works in Windows
If you have mongod running as service you don’t need to start mongod eveytime
Just go to cmd prompt and run mongo.It will connect
On Unix it uses fork option so your mongod will be running in the background
That is why your classmates don’t have to start mongod everytime and can connect just by issuing mongo
Hope it is clear now