iTunes 10.5 for Windows 7 not connecting to iTunes store.

just curious if anyone figured out how to fix this problem yet? I recently bought a new IPOD and went to go to the Store to download some new songs and I can't connect. funny just a couple months ago I was able to connect to the Store and Download a song! I can't recall when i did the last upgrade but now I cannot connect to the Store. I have spent a few days on this and still cannot figure out where on my computer it is preventing the connection. When i run a diagnostic in the Itunes program it shows all connections are successful. ***! How can it be successful when it freezes up halfway thru and I have a white page that says ITUNES and that's it! I notice also I cannot access the Itunes Help either. Any suggestions??

THIS WORKED FOR ME FINALLY! THANK YOU THANK YOU japiohelp! I was struggling to keep from going TOTALLY postal!

I have tried EVERY fix posted on these boards, not ONE has worked for me. I thought that there may be an issue with filtering software like was posted to the thread, but I don't have any. I use MS Essentials and Malwarebytes, neither of these are causing the problem. I have also uninstalled, re-installed everything Apple, nothing has worked. I am running Win7 x64, I have the latest windows updates. I do have the Bigfoot Networks Killer NIC and I saw that this may be the issue, but I haven't figured out how it would cause the problem. And yes, I even tried the netsh winsock reset fix and nothing. Come on Apple, throw us poor slobs a bone!

This FINALLY worked for me....

In windows 7 click on the start menu, go to accessories, right click on the command prompt and click run as administrator. once it opens type the words

netsh winsock reset

hit enter and it should say something like "winsock reset successful now" reboot your computer.

After days of searching, this worked for me hopefully it does for you because I know how frustrating it is and how crappy Apple's support is.

Good Luck!

I took the shotgun approach and created the following expections and that worked for me:

I have been working for over a week trying to get iTunes store to open. I un-installed and re-installed according to all the instructions two times. No luck. After reading your post and putting iTunes.exe as an exception in Net Nanny, everything is back to normal. THANK YOU!!!!

There is one great solution to the store not opening which I saw in another post. Buy your music at Amazon. With their software the music loads right into your iTunes. I have tried all the stuff listed in these forums to no avail. 10.5 just makes my processor run at 99% until I get it turned off.