I have had this problem for about a month and a half, I have looked at so many help sites and forums, but nothing has so far helped. Hopefully someone here can.


-- I cannot log into hotmail. I can get to the site, but when I put in my address and password, I get a "Page Cannot be Found / Cannot find server or DNS Error" error. Yes, I'm entering the right password and spelling it correctly.
-- I cannot use Windows Update. I go the page, click Scan for Updates, but it says "Windows Update has encountered an error and cannot display the requested page."
-- I cannot use MSN Messenger. I enter my password, the lil' green guy circles around for about half a second, then a little windows says, "We were unable to sign you in to .NET Messenger Service, possibly because of a problem with the service or with your Internet connection. Please make sure you are connected to the Internet. 0x81000301." Of course, I am connected to the Internet.
-- The new Google Mail (GMail) page also does not load for me. Same "Page Cannot be Displayed" error as hotmail.

Every log-in site doesn't have this problem -- I'm a member at many forums and I can log in at all them. I also can log-in my other e-mail at fastmail.fm (signed up for it solely to get to my hotmail mail).


First thing everyone/every place I've asked says to delete temporarily Internet file and cookes. I've done that so many times already, but it doesn't fix this. I've also reset all Internet options back to defaults, but that doesn't work. I've toggled the Security settings up and down and all around, but that doesn't work. I've turned off/on the basic Windows firewall, but that doesn't work. I've run AdAware, Spybot, Hijack This (although I don't know which files it finds should be deleted and which should not), Symantec's virus and security check, Housecall's scan, Spyware Blaster, and a couple other programs that I've lost track of by now. I have tried flushing the DNS, and tried ipconfig/release and ipconfig/renew for the DNS, which worked on a different problem that I had in April accessing a certain site. My Cipher Strength is 128-bit. I've even tried setting up a new user account on my computer, thinking that that may solve the problem, but no.

I have tried uninstalling and then re-installing the MSN Messenger, but that didn't work. Really, I don't care that much about the Messenger, I never really used it all that much, but I'm pretty sure the reason it isn't working for me is a similar, if not the same, reason the other things aren't working.

I have asked in a couple other forums for help, but their suggestions didn't work. They included: synchronizing my clock to make sure the time, date, year, and regional settings were correct; clearing the SSL slate; registering "regsvr32 softpub.dll" file; checking to see if anything unnecessary has been added from the hosts file.

I have also been to the MSN newgroups, but responses there yielded the usual "clear cookies and Temp. Internet files" and links to Microsoft articles that didn't solve my problem(s). Most of the articles said to download and install various files, which I did. Half the time, the downloaded file wouldn't install because it said a different file was not installed, and half the time the downloaded file (usually one another file told me I needed) wouldn't install because it said it was already installed.

Something that confuses things even further is that my sister's laptop is connected to this computer with a router, and CAN access hotmail and Windows Update, so the problem seemingly lies w/ a setting or file on this computer.

I've been reading the forum here for over an hour, and, despite a couple similar problems with log-ins, nothing that I've seen has been of help in my case.


Windows XP Home Edition
Version 2002
Service Pack 1

Pentium 4 CPU 1.80 GHz
1.79 GHz
512 MB of RAM

Don't you just love microsoft?

You say in the one of the last sentence's that your sister's laptop does connect to Windows Update and Hotmail. I've just updated every computer on the second floor here. I got atleast 2 "Windows Update has encountered an error and cannot display the requested page." I refreshed it and it worked afterwards. I'd bet you'd already tried this one as well, but you didn't mention it. Anyway i did some research as you did. It seems it can be a variety of problems...Ok, first question:
Did you upgrade from 5.0 to 6.0?

Until something goes wrong, yes. :cheesy:


Tried refreshing multiple times. Same result.


Didn't have to. Computer came w/ 6.0.

Do Ad Aware and/or SpyBot actually find anything? If they do, you can safely have them fix what they've found (do not fix anything with HJT for now!).

When I ran them yesterday, AdAware found some things (12-15, I think) and Spybot found about 6 things that came up red. I let the 2 programs get fix things. Mostly search bars and tracking cookies.

I know not to delete everything Hijack This finds; I didn't delete anything it found -- it found a lot, but from reading HJT logs in various forums, that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

You might want to post your HJT log and a description of your problem in a thread in our Security forum just so that we can see if the log still indicates any "nasties".

it came with? Well maybe we can solve this if you have any "nasties" as DMR describes em.

Hello, I write you because I have the exact same problem as you, with hotmail and messenger and I dont know what to do.
I have tried everything just as you have and nothing has worked !! I hope that when you get it fixed you could please tell me how to solve this nasty problem. Im going to keep trying to figure this out and if I find something useful I will let you know through this forum. Good luck !!

I actually have fixed it.

I had said in the Security section that I no longer had Norton Anti-Virus, that I had let the subscription lapse. However, it was pointed out to me that I had a virus, leaving me, well, screwed.

Despite not having Norton anymore, I never uninstalled it. And on Fridays at 8.00p, it starts itself and does a scan. Usually, it finds nothing, which I always attributed to either a) not having a virus, b) that Norton was not being updated to catch new viruses (viri?), or c) the subscription to Norton is over, and while it's running still, it doesn't work. HOWEVER, in late June, it found a virus and deleted it. It was a dcomx.exe. I had two such dcomx.exe files on my computer, but Norton only found one. Then last Thursday, (July 1st), Windows Update popped up for the first time since early May and said it had new updates to install. I let them install, and hotmail and the WU site actually worked. And today, Norton asked me to update virus definitions, and it went through.

^

Hi Jazin. Smile again, I had the same problems and used the same "apparent" fixes like you that didn't solve the problems. After much trial and error I came to the root of my problems which were twofold: the administrator name (system user names) was wrong and Norton Internet Security and Anti-virus programs didn't accepted my new administrator name.
1. I changed back to the Win xp administrator name that was used when the program worked perfect. (In start--->system-->users ,I just deleted all the user names and entered my old administrator name which was USER)
2. In start-->system-->software I completely deleted the NORTON INTERNET SECURITY software, shut the computer down then after the restart installed the Norton Internet Security and Anti-virus program from CD disk.
After having this done ---- Voila ,everything worked perfect. No more "can't find server or DNS" and "can't open page" messages. Perhaps this might help you too solving your problems.
best regard kuddech