[Eric Scott]

Hello all,

A week or so ago, we recovered our home computer from a crash that required us to revert all its settings and programs back to factory setup.

Our family has several user accounts on this computer. We are running Verizon FiOS on Internet Explorer 6.0, Windows XP. Connecting to and browsing the internet in the Explorer browser works fine. However, when a program on our computer tries to access the internet, we get a variety of error messages.

When trying to register Microsoft Publisher through the internet, the Wizard says "A communication error has occured. Your request can not be processed at this time."

When trying to connect to the iTunes store through iTunes, it says "iTunes could not connect to the iTunes store. The network connection was refused." A similar error reads "Check your internet connection, or try again later."

If it helps any, our programs can link to their online help pages, and clicking stuff from the programs like "Visit Microsoft Publisher Online" etc. does work in bringing us to the web.

I've done several searches to try to remedy the problem, but I'm just not coming up with anything. If anyone could shed some light, I'd greatly appreciate it!

Thanks,
-Eric

[Advertisements]

Is it possible that your firewall has forgotten what programs are allowed to access the Internet? Which firewall do you have?
Johanna

[Johanna]

Is it possible that your firewall has forgotten what programs are allowed to access the Internet? Which firewall do you have?
Johanna

[Eric Scott]

Johanna,

Under Control Panel > Network and Internet Connections > Windows Firewall > Exceptions iTunes is specifically listed as an allowed site.

I am not currently aware of any additional firewalls on my computer. Is it possible to have two or more firewalls working concurrently? If so, I could ask my dad if he has initiated any others when he was setting the computer up again...

[Johanna]

There may have been a security program on the manufacturer's disk that he used to restore it to default. Look in the Control Panel> Add/Remove programs and see if McAffee or Norton or another security program is listed in there.
Johanna

[Eric Scott]

Problem resolved.

Norton was installed on our system, but it appeared to be inactive/half working. We couldn't even open the program up to make any changes. Also, the Add/Remove list didn't give removing Norton as an option.

So we purchased a program (Fix-It Utilities 8) that enabled us to manually disable any programs we wanted. After we disabled all of Norton's processes (there were many) the Add/Remove list finally gave us the option to completely remove Semantic stuff/Norton from our system.

Immediately, all internet connections were returned to our programs.

Thanks!