how wrote:
>>> know the orginating computer ( where the program will be run) is a
>>> Windows machine, but I have no other information about the network.
>>>
>>> Any further information, would be appreaciated.
>>>
>>> Howard
>>>
>> As outgoing ports are randomly chosen, it sounds weird to me that they
>> block those ports. It would mean that that machine cannot establish an
>> outgoing connection for _any_ protocol.
>>
>> Besides, I don't think you can manipulate the outgoing port on windows.
>> (I also don't think you should want to)
>>
>> what kind of access do you have to this specific windows machine? Can
>> you use telnet or a remote desktop of some kind?
>>
>> Do you know whether or not this system is able to connect anything from
>> the inside? (can it start internet explorer and browse the web?)
>>
>> Dennis
>
> Thanks for your help.
>
> The inside machine can access the Internet via browser,email and we had
> a gotomypc(sp) session ( from my offsite pc to the machine in
> question). Can we conclude something from that?
>
> Howard
>

Yes.. We can. I think your system is not blocking outgoing traffic. If
Internet Explorer can connect to the internet, your php application
should be able to do so too. You can easily try this by executing the
following commands (make a php file and get it executed):

<?
echo file_get_contents('http://www.google.com');
?>

It should output the google website or an error of some kind.

Tell us wether or not this works.