my friend and I seem to be having the same problem, we've removed norton, turned avast off and tried multiple discovery servers. Right now we are downloading Service pack 1 and hoping that it will work, if not then he is going to upgrade to windows XP.... I guess if anyone has any ideas let me know... and I'll update this when we see if SP1 fixed it.
After a lot of research on internet, I think the problem could be DirectX 10. Anyone knows a way to have both DirectX 9 and 10 and to switch to 9 when playing freelancer?
I would think that Direct X 10 would include Direct X 9 so it wouldn't make a difference... is it stuck on connecting to global server? (cause that can be easliy solved) or does it actualy say a connection cannot be established.
//Also just to answer a couple other questions that have been asked.. I run norton on XP and Freelancer works just fine.
Another thing maybe on a funnier note.. A computer guy who writes the codes for operating systems came and gave a presentation at our school. He said that there is already a Windows XP SP3 all done and ready however, they are not going to release it until Vista SP1 comes out because it would make XP outrun Vista by double. Just thought that was a little funnY:P