well, i returned after a year-ish and i installed the game but! i can not connect!

when i went to search for a solution it looks like this problem has been around for years now and no one has a solution.
should i just wait it out?

things i have done:
- checked fire walls
- turned off work offline on internet explorer
- clicked and unclicked the 'automatically connect' thing
- ran as administrator
- ran in comparability mode
- reinstalled
- ran around unconnected and did stuff to see if it would trigger

i think i did like....everything. i dont recall this happening last year when i installed and if so i dont remember how i fixed it.

any help is appreciated, but if theres no solution ill just wait it out i guess?