(OT) Computer Question

May 10, 2010 8 Replies

I have a machine on the bench that can go online to any address I can dream up, except it will not go to Microsoft.com. It won't go to any of the MSoft sites. I'm trying to get the latest updates (XP SP3) using a high speed connection, the machine normally uses dial-up.



It's not an Internet issue because I can go to Yahoo!, MSN, Google, Adobe (where I downloaded Reader 9) and lots of other places.



The only place the machine will not let me go is MSoft. It does not care if I'm using IE or FireFox, or Chrome, or any other browser. I was getting a screen that indicated the machine was attempting a Dial-up, but now that I've removed the dial-up service, all I'm getting is an error, PAGE CANNOT BE DISPLAYED, with a series of things to check in Internet Options.



I can't find any settings in Internet Options that would let the machine connect to all of the sites I can dream up, but not connect to support.microsoft.com, or any other microsoft.com page.



What's keeping me from going to MSoft pages? The site works because I can get to it from other machines.



I'm running XP Home, SP2, IE6, FireFox 3.5, Chrome, and Safari. The message is always, Sorry can't find Microsoft.com.


There are several possibilities I can think of but two common ones would be that your firewall has blocked the microsoft domain somehow or your HOSTS file is redirecting it to the local machine.

This is my Dad's machine, and my brother screws around with the Hosts file, but I have never played with it. I did a search for HOSTS, and there are several, some with variations on the file name and repeats of the filename but in different folders. Which of the hosts files should I be looking at.

As for the Firewall, it is OFF because I don't want it to be blocking anything until I get everything working.

Last time I ran a Windows machine with no firewall (while doing a fresh installation of XP Pro), the machine was infected within 20 minutes. Are you connected via a router which may afford some protection?

If you don't find a solution, go to

formatting link
and post in one of their forums. It tends to attract the type of people whose job it is to support corporate installations. You'll probably have to register, but it costs nothing.

The ma127.0.0.1 localhost

Finally a good virus scan would be in order also.

I'm guessing the HOSTS file that I want is gonna reside in the System32 Folder. Is that a good guess?

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