> > The default installation of Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 adds a line to the Windows/System32/drivers/etc/hosts which causes network functions (database connect functions too, like mysql_connect) to timeout when connecting to "localhost". To resolve this problem, remove the entry from the hosts file: > ::1 localhost > > or connect using the IP address, 127.0.0.1 or another domain name. Just FYI, this is also the default on newer Linux versions - Ubuntu 9.10 being a prime example. Connecting to "localhost" creates an IPv6 connection. Some utilities (e.g. telnet) fall back to trying IPv4 if the v6 connection fails. Regards, Andy