problems signing in on windows messenger

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.messenger (More info?)

windows messenger works perfectly on my settings but for some reason will not
work on my husbands settings. We have set up his net passport ok as we were
able to sign in to this with it. The computer crashed a couple of weeks ago
and we are still getting things up and running and this is the only thing
that we can't get working. we keep getting a message saying that it is not
possible to connect as the network is down - yet on my settings everything is
ok.

Can anyone help us as it is a nuisance for him to have to switch to my
settings when he wants to send a message to people