Yes it is. And I don't know how relevant this is, but until recently my laptop originally came with Windows Vista Home edition - I had just upgraded to Windows 7 about 2 months ago. HOWEVER, I had this problem even before I upgraded so I doubt the upgrade itself is the culprit.
Okay, so for the sake of having data to look at, I performed two tests on the command prompt for two different ftps: a ping test and a trace route. I'll be honest, I don't know how to interpret these but the microsoft one looks off - the other one is the server of the website for an organization I'm in (I'm the webmaster - this server is the reason I want ftp access). Hopefully these reveal more to you guys than me.
Ping test ftp.microsoft.com
Ping test ftp.sigphieta.org
Trace Route ftp.microsoft.com
Trace Route ftp.sigphieta.org
I don't think the ping results are relevant.
Failing to respond to a "ping" sounds like a prudent bit of protection against attack that Microsoft would likely have built.
Same with the trace route. I show similar timeouts from the several variants I can use to show a trace route. Again, not really relevant.
If you CAN connect via FTP to your own site's FTP server, but you CANNOT connect to Microsoft's FTP server... is it possible that your IP address has been "black listed" at Microsoft??
Just out of curiosity, how about trying to connect to another public FTP site (from IBM) that absolutely works with "anonymous" and your email address, which you've certainly never been to before so they couldn't possibly have blacklisted you (please substitute "." instead of "*" in the following URL when you try it):ftp service*boulder*ibm*comDid that work or fail??
basically failed - like before, it did not ask for credentials at all but showed no sort of error message. It seems to fail before it even connects.
Again... fascinating.
And yet, you have no problem connecting to your own private FTP site (which does or does not accept "anonymous" logins??). This is the "giant clue" really, namely why does this work from this same PC whereas as all other FTP connections appear to fail?
Also, you never did answer my question as to whether the "active layer gateway" service was running? Go into TASKMGR, then the services tab, and arrange alphabetically for easy examination.
First, to clarify, I can't connect even with the personal ftp (same problem as the other ftps). Second, my task manager does not even list the Application Layer Gateway so I'm assuming I need to have it running for one reason or another...
So I went to my System32 folder and found the service (alg.exe), double clicked, and now its in the task manager as "Stopped", but when I try to start the service I get an error saying "The operation could not be completed. Access Denied."
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