W7 blocking Installer from connecting to external sites

Hi guys,

I hope this is the right section.

I am trying to install an application which uses NSIS v2.6. The installer needs to connect to various external urls to install components, however, the NSIS installer fails to connect and gives an error. Now, the programmer who compiled the installer insists the problem is my end.

I'm at a loss as to why the installer is getting blocked. All the urls are active as I can connect via my browser.

Things I've tried :
Running the installer as Admin
Disabling Firewall/Anti-virus
Set local intranet/Internet zones to low in CP

I don't have another PC to try on.


Any help appreciated.

A firewall is the most likely cause of such problems. An entry in the hosts file might also try to redirect it to somewhere else and failing. Or the servers being down at the time is also a chance.

Often installers leave logs for reporting such failures and its causes, that may prove helpful here. The developer may assist you in getting those and maybe find something there. Trying in another computer can also help (even if it's in a virtual machine if you lack another real computer).

Or even better, try to download a real installer instead of those pesky "web-based" pseudo-installers that only download other things.

Alejandro85 said:

A firewall is the most likely cause of such problems. An entry in the hosts file might also try to redirect it to somewhere else and failing. Or the servers being down at the time is also a chance.

Often installers leave logs for reporting such failures and its causes, that may prove helpful here. The developer may assist you in getting those and maybe find something there. Trying in another computer can also help (even if it's in a virtual machine if you lack another real computer).

Or even better, try to download a real installer instead of those pesky "web-based" pseudo-installers that only download other things.

Thanks for the response Alejandro85.

I hadn't thought of the hosts file, so I disabled it. It didn't help. Where would I find the installer logs? Another thing I tried was digging out my XP disc and installing it on my second partition to create a dual boot XP/W7 set up. So I ran the installer (NSIS 2.4.6) for this troublesome application on XP and it installed flawlessly, connecting to all external sites.

So at least now I know the problem definitely lies within the W7 environment. It seems there is a local permissions issue somewhere...