This bug/feature is a pet peeve of mine. I've posted some bugreports before. What more can I do to encourage you guys to fix this? Like I said in the other post, I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is if you're willing to fix this bug.
Despite the cryptic message here, this method actually works! The Microsoft Loopback adapter is just a dummy networking adapter (no drivers or hardware required) which people normally set up if they have a SQL server but no network connection. I googled "microsoft loopback adapter" and got several good sites:
In general, you install this dummy adapter, and then in your tv server setup you tell it to point to the web address that you specified during the loopback adapter install. It's single-seat ONLY, so don't plan on multi-seat usage.
Just an update - I had to discontinue using the loopback adapter fix because it stopped the zap2it plugin from being able to download the epg data altogether, regardless of whether there is an internet connection available or not.
Well, there is a much better workaround than using a loopback device.
Just open regedit and go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters
Now create a new entry called DisableDHCPMediaSense from type REG_DWORD and set the value to 1.
It changes the behaviour of the so called MediaSense and after this the IP stack is always enable.