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
