Troubles Siging In To Windows Messenger

[Jim]

I have been using Windows Messenger for some time now.
One day, after a fair amount of installing new programs,
uninstalling old ones, moving files around,
defragmenting, disk cleaning, etc, Windows Messenger
simply could not sign me in. I received the old "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 that you are
connected to the Internet."

Mind you, I WAS signed in just a few minutes before all
of this. I checked all port settings, router settings,
TCP/IP configurations, and everything checked out to be
the same as before. Fine, that is. Note that my AOL
Instant Messenger worked fine (still), as did IE,
Outlook, Weatherbug, KaZaA, and even a POP3 mail alert
application that I had written.

I tried new downloads of both Windows and MSN Messengers,
and I tried every combination of installing one,
uninstalling the other, installing both, etc, etc. I also
trie to re-install IE 6 - but funnily enough, after
opening ie6setup.exe on my computer, I received the error
that "Setup was unable to download information about
available installation sites..." That wouldn't connect
either. So no such luck there. I then downloaded Trillian
and found that it wouldn't connect to a single service
whatsoever (AIM, Yahoo!, MSN, etc). I am positive that
my router (and its built in firewall) are set up for
Windows Messenger correctly. Again, I had been using it
just minutes before.

Finally, I heard about Jonathan Kay, and I found this
forum. Seeing that several users experienced the same
problem, I became hopeful when I found his list of 8
things to "check/try". After completing every single one
of them, I still had no luck. My outlook grew dismal when
I searched and searched the forum for someone with the
same problem that I had, and only found Kay's same canned
response for each of them. That may have worked for them,
but it seems I have a different problem, necessitating a
different solution.

Perhaps something happened in the registry during all
this? Perhaps a service, on which Windows Messenger is
dependent, is not functioning properly? As an
intermediate programmer, I am not afraid of manipulating
things behind the scenes (registy, .ini files, .dlls,
UDP/TCP/IP settings, whatever) so long as I'm pointed in
the right direction before doing so.

I have just finished cleaning up my computer, organizing
all my settings/applications/files, etc, and the last
thing that I want to do is reinstall XP.

Expert help is most appreciated in this matter.

Kindest Regards,

Jim

 

[L]

My experience almost parallels yours, Jim. After cleaning out a persistent
porn page that had lodged somehow in the registry I could get logged on to
the Messenger site but could not logon to Hotmail, I was constantly referred
back to the login page. I am no expert, and I came to this newsgroup for
illumination. I too tried the Sacred 8, but still could not get a logon. I
did most of the things you did to no avail. In the end this problem was
resolved by the simple expedient of reducing the Privacy level to nil and
allowing all cookies. I have them cleared on leaving and this seems to work
okay. I do not know why.

HTH
L