Avi Converter: Troubleshooter of Error: Cannot access any Microsoft website

Cannot access any Microsoft website

Older System = 1.7GHz, 512 MB, Win XP Pro SP3, IE7.
There are 5 computers in total networked at a satellite office behind a router that connects to head office via VPN across the internet, AVG 8.5 Network Edition (all computers).
I have been unable to directly access any Microsoft website via browser from three of these computers at my office.
Two computers are identical spec'd Dell Vostro - one can access any website, while the other cannot access any MS website but can access others.
Another older computer as id'd above which I log into as supervisor has the same issue. I tried the reset under the Advanced Internet Options tab, tried using Firefox but still no go. All 3 do seem to do the Automatic Updates on schedule however.
Both IE7
and Firefox 3.5 say that they can find the MS site but say "waiting for http://www.microsoft.com/..." or "Website found.
Waiting for reply..." and eventually they time out. It almost seems as if MS websites are specifically blocked on these 3 computers.
I
can connect to mail.live.com on that old computer but not MSN.com.
Just updated it to IE8 by downloading the 16MB preinstall program from one of the good computers and it did the full install in the background so I know it can access MS behind the scenes,
but it still cannot access any MS site through a browser.
Any suggestions short of a OS reinstall would be appreciated. Thanks!

Solutions to the Problem Cannot access any Microsoft website

Download Error Fixer (Free)

Hi Fosters,
Thanks for posting your question.
This is a Windows Vista support forum but I’ll be happy to offer some suggestions that might get you pointed in the right direction.

I would recommend checking Windows XP specific resources:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/newsgroups.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/newsgroups/reader.mspx?dg=microsoft.public.windowsxp.general

As an additional information, you may try adding the Microsoft Sites in the Trusted Sites Zone under the security settings of the Browser.
How to use security zones in Internet Explorer
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/174360

Thanks and Regards,
Chethan Kumar

Microsoft Answers Support Engineer.
Visit our Microsoft Answers Feedback Forum and let us know what you think.

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