I'm running a Windows 7 Professional machine from which I remotely administer several networks that I constructed and manage. I've been connecting computers together professionally since 1980. (Hopefully, that will alleviate the necessity for anyone to ask me if I've checked my internet connection.) This machine performs flawlessly except for the built-in Windows 7 internet games. It is unpredictable whether or not I will be able to successfully play a game of Internet Spades or Backgammon (I haven't tried the other games). One moment, it will connect to the game server, find players, and connect to the game, but fail to start the game. If I try again, it will start the game within a couple seconds. Then again, it may hang while connecting to the server or to the game. But on many days, I can only play a game about half the time that I attempt to. The rest of the time, I get this error: "A network error occurred while communicating with the game server. "Error Code: 0x80041009" On some occasions, the error code is 0x80041006 or 0x80041004. This happens whether I am doing anything else with my connection or not. I might be listening to Pandora or watching a live news stream, but I can't play Spades. I might be able to play Internet Backgammon just fine, but not Spades or, seemingly less often, vice versa. These errors occur on other Windows 7 computers on other networks that I use, too. For instance, my son can play World of Warcraft on our home network just fine. But on any Windows 7 machine at home, work, or on my clients' networks, Internet Spades often fails to connect to its server. (I should mention that two Windows XP notebooks have no problem with their internet games on either my work, home, or clients' networks.) The only things that these networks have in common is me, and they are all behind ISA Server 2006 firewalls, but none of the client machines use the proxy or caching services of the firewalls. They don't even use the ISA Server client software. I have never seen a gaming network with more unreliable performance -- whatever the reason. Will I simply have to accept that these games always will be unreliable?

Today, the situation is much worse. I'm only getting 0x80041004, but it happens while "Connecting to the game server", or "Looking for other players", or "Connecting to the game", or "Starting the game". Maybe one out of ten times I try to play a game, the game will actually start. I should probably use some third-party web site to play these games. I should mention that I've "turned off" (uninstalled) and "turned on" again the internet games, a suggestion that some moderators have made, although it is unknown if that suggestion has ever actually worked.

Today, the situation is much worse. I'm only getting 0x80041004, but it happens while "Connecting to the game server", or "Looking for other players", or "Connecting to the game", or "Starting the game". Maybe one out of ten times I try to play a game, the game will actually start. I should probably use some third-party web site to play these games.

Hi David, Please check if the issue occurs in Clean Boot and see if certain third party software or service may cause this issue. If the issue disappears in the Clean Boot environment, you can continue to narrow down which entry is causing the issue. If the issue persists, you can try reinstalling the internet games from Control Panel by referring to this article: Turn Windows features on or off Hope this helps. Regards, Linda Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

I had previously uninstalled and reinstalled the games in Programs and Features/Turn Windows Features On or Off. I had not previously tried clean-booting, so I gave it a shot. No change. Connections to the game were still unreliable. During this process, I restarted the machine several times. However, when I installed the latest batch of Windows 7 updates from Microsoft and an update for Adobe Reader 9, I had to reboot the machine. Now the games are connecting more reliably. I have not, as yet, done any testing on other Windows 7 machines that were experiencing the same problem. When I do, I will report back.