I upgraded my Win7 laptop about a month ago to Win8. Windows Live Mail worked fine with all my accounts at first.

About 3 days ago -  12/31/2012 to be specific - numerous Microsoft updates were applied for 3 consecutive days. Now my Windows Live Mail won't send or receive anymore using my ISP account. Here is the error I get:

Unable to send or receive messages for the XXXXX account. The connection to the server has failed.

Server: 'pop.ipower.com'
Windows Live Mail Error ID: 0x800CCC0E
Protocol: POP3
Port: 110
Secure(SSL): No
Socket Error: 10013

Note that it worked fine prior to the updates. I went to do a system restore to  Jan 1,  2013 and was told that the restore set by Windows Update was defective. So now I am stuck with a laptop that can send/receive emails, without any way to restore it  - short of a complete clean reinstall.

Also note that I haven't changed any setting AND with a Windows 7 computer set up the same way, it works just fine - the SAME email account there sends/receives with no errors. So I know it is not the ipower server.

Any suggestions what I can do to restore my email to a functioning state? Thanks.