@Minimalist. Tnx for posting this. A very in-depth technical article. I decided to do the registry hack. ... completely disable the WinHttpAutoProxySvc service ... via the corresponding registry entry. Under “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\WinHttpAutoProxySvc” change the value of “Start” from 3 (manual) to 4 (disabled).