You may receive a "Failure to connect to Web server" error message when you browse local Web applications or you connect to an existing ASP.NET Web application in Visual Studio .NET 2003

Symptom 1

When you use Microsoft Internet Explorer to visit a Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) Web site and you are logged on to the computer that is running IIS, you may receive the following error message:

Symptom 2

When you use Internet Explorer to browse http://localhost, you may receive the following error message:

Symptom 3

When you try to open an existing Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 project, you may receive the following error message:

Symptom 4

When you try to open an existing Visual Studio .NET 2003 project and you have a satellite connection, you may receive both of the following error messages:

These problems can occur because one or both of the following conditions are true:

• The proxy server does not allow connections to local addresses.
• Internet Explorer is using the wrong proxy settings or invalid proxy settings.

To resolve these problems, use one of the following methods, depending on your symptom.

Method 1: Symptom 1

In Internet Explorer, turn off Automatically detect settings. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Start Internet Explorer.
2. In Internet Explorer, click Tools, and then click Internet Options.
3. In the Internet Options dialog box, click the Connections tab, and then click LAN Settings.
4. In the Local Area Network (LAN) Settings dialog box, click to clear the Automatically detect settings check box, and then click OK.
5. Click OK.

Method 2: Symptom 2

In Internet Explorer, turn on Automatically detect settings, and then turn off the proxy server. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Start Internet Explorer.
2. In Internet Explorer, click Tools, and then click Internet Options.
3. In the Internet Options dialog box, click the Connections tab, and then click Lan Settings.
4. In the Local Area Network (LAN) Settings dialog box, click to select the Automatically detect settings check box.
5. Click to clear the Use a proxy server for your LAN check box, and then click OK.
6. Click OK.

Method 3: Symptom 3 and symptom 4

In Internet Explorer, turn on Bypass proxy server for local addresses. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Start Internet Explorer.
2. In Internet Explorer, click Tools, and then click Internet Options.
3. In the Internet Options dialog box, click the Connections tab, and then click Lan Settings.
4. In the Local Area Network (LAN) Settings dialog box, click to select the Bypass proxy server for local addresses check box, and then click OK.
5. Click OK.

If you try to create a new Visual Studio .NET 2003 project while this problem occurs, the IDE may unexpectedly stop responding because the IDE makes a request to http://localhost.