I am having the same issue, i even turned off all firewalls, still saying
" Cannot Connect! "
" Please check your network settings or try again later. "
" Do you want to change proxy settings? "
(by putting that into the explorers' address bar or into Start -> Run) and move all the files to a different location. Make sure the folder is empty after moving the files out.
Start the updater again and if it works now, please send me that broken files you moved out for debugging purposes :P
Just wanted to let you know everything was working fine until GU 44. Now I am getting the exact same message. Going to try your fix and I will send the files...