> Maybe some remainder of a previously installed firewall like Zone Alarm, GData,
> Norton anything else? Sometimes it's easier to just wipe the damn think and
> reinstall ;)
>
> What exactly do you mean with "connection actively refused"?
>

You might hit the nail on the head. That is exactly the error message
that my customers report when they have an "outbreak protection" like
Norton or ZoneAlarm or Keria or whatever installed. Most of the times
these programa ask the user if it's ok that the program starts an
outbound connection. But there are some versions out there that do not
ask anything and make windows report that "the host has actively refused
the connection", although the host has nothing to do with it.

John