Have a strange problem in Win XP Pro: IE7 works & connects (router to cable ISP), but outlook express, Eudora, or whatever acn't connect to any pop3 or SMTP server (have tried several). Can ping the servers but can't read or send e-mails. This happened after updating a years worth of updates on a client's computer. Absolutely no clue. HELP PLEASE. Please e-mail me at floyd@fgerstenfeld.com Thanks

Floyd, Try using Telnet from a DOS session to test for SMTP and POP connectivity. For example, at a DOS prompt, to test POP type: telnet <IP or hostname of POP server> 110 if your host name is pop.myisp.com then you would type: telnet pop.myisp.com 100 If it connects, you should see something like +OK Hello there orthe title bar of the DOS window will show the hostname. Same thing for SMTP. This will at least tell you if it's a connectivity issue or something with the e-mail client. Hope this helps. Jason

Thank you Jason. I already determined that itappears to be a connectivity issue with ANY e-mail client and not with anything else. Floyd

Floyd, How did you determine? IE working would just verify port 80 is open, not 25 or 110. Any e-mail client not workingwould indicate there's something blocking ports 25 and 110. The telnet test through DOS would verify. Some security suite software that replaces the built-in Windows Firewall like Norton Internet Security could certainly block as well. Have you tried turning these off? Another issue I've seen is ISPs requiring you to use their outgoing SMTP. It's not unheard of for them to use a non-traditional port for POP as well. Case in point, my ISP BellSouth (the new AT&T) requires all outgoing SMTP to go through their servers smtp.bellsouth.net but I use lunarpages.com as our business hosting provider. When I connect through my home DSL, I have to change my outgoing SMTP if I want to use port 25. Jason