http:// OR www. ?

I would use TCPView from sysinternals to monitor what the browser is trying to connect to. when you leave off the http:// perhaps IE is trying to connec to some strange port. If you don't have TCPView, you can download it free from http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/TcpView.html

Also, just try going to www.example.com:80 That should tell IE to connect to port 80 on the remote server.

though broswers are some what smart, they only process what you type in the address bar. http:// indicates your looking for a web site with the name www..com. Just as ftp:// indicates your looking for a file transfer program site.

When Internet name servers query other name servers for an address for www..com if there isn't an A record for wild card e.g. *..com, the authoritative DNS server for the domain name won't return the query to the Internet name servers the address for www..com

www. is part of the domain name. Example: com is the top level, then next is the . then next is the www or sales or support or whatever the subdomain is. DNS would have A records that indicate sales..com is address xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx so you would be taken to that address which can display a web page. Without indicating what your looking for by using the http:// or ftp:// browsers assume http:// on port 80. As we mentioned above DNS has to be able to resolve a query for www. to return an address else the error page can not be displayed is returned in the browser.