Well, I'm not sure what I did, but it appears the service is finally working for me again. Hm. Maybe just a temp disabling of my account...

Sound like WLM just had a bad day! The other person getting the same error message, set up a new user account and it worked fine. I don't use this program so don't have any secrets to share. It seems that you both got results when you got out of the current user account and accessed from another or went back to the original account.

Michael, you mentioned daylight savings time. Microsoft put out a patch to correct the time on computers with chips set for the usual daylight time change over. Did you get that? Search MS update if not and use it. In the meantime, check the computer time. Reset like this if needed temporarily:

Right click on Clock> 'Adjust Date/Time'> Time Zone tab> set the correct time zone> check 'automatically adjust for DSL'> Internet Time tab> Check 'automatically sync with internet server> copy this server and paste it in the server box:
tick.usno.navy.mil
Click on 'update now'> allow it to reset> Apply> OK.

That should set to current, correct DST.

Not sure if this helps anyone or not. I am running Vista ultimate 64 and couldn't get on either. Pissed around for about an hour and couldn't get anything. then this worked but it was a fluke. Under services I enabled "NetTcpPortSharing", on my computer it was set to "Disabled" not sure why but hey it's not like I checked it before right? Well I was also in "Windows Firewall with Advanced Security" and was fiddling with the settings there to. I changed a setting in each and tried Messenger and it had crashed for some reason. Okay I thought...great. Well when I opened messenger again it logged in right away. In order to test it again I disabled it and tried signing in, but again it said my default gateway was offline. Turned it back on feeling smug but nothing LOL, then I decided to try exiting right out of messenger and opening it again and it was back to working. Make sure to set it to automatic though and not automatic (Delayed). Anyways let me know if this works or not. Not sure if XP had that service or not, so it might just be Vista...good luck
D