VBA ServerXMLHTTP proxy is fine with https but fails on http -

i'm trying write macro querying web update access database. reason, vba refuses play friendly http, totally content https.

here's requesting function:

function httprequest(byval url string, useproxy boolean) string      dim response string     dim proxy string     dim xhr object       'make http requester object     set xhr = createobject("msxml2.serverxmlhttp.6.0")      if useproxy         if left(url, 5) = "https"             proxy = "proxyb1secure:8443"         else             proxy = "proxyb1:8080"         end if         xhr.setproxy 2, proxy     end if      xhr.open "get", url, false      'send request. line times out on http     xhr.send     'fetch whole page     response = xhr.responsetext      'clean     set xhr = nothing      'return     httprequest = response  end function 

and testing function:

function testproxy()     'this 1 works     msgbox (httprequest("https://www.bing.com/search?q=stackoverflow", true))     'this 1 doesn't.     msgbox (httprequest("http://www.bing.com/search?q=stackoverflow", true)) end function 

i'm i'm going after right name , port, because i've tested same thing via java, , it's content both flavors (i.e. works in following code).

public static void main(string[] args) throws exception {     url url = new url("http://www.bing.com/search?q=stackoverflow");     httpurlconnection con = (httpurlconnection) url.openconnection(getproxyforurl(url));     system.out.println(con.getresponsecode() + " " + con.getresponsemessage());     inputstream = con.getinputstream();     int c;     stringbuilder sb = new stringbuilder();     while ((c = is.read()) != -1) {         sb.append((char) c);     }     string page = sb.tostring();     system.out.println(page); }  public static proxy getproxyforurl(url url) {     if (url.getprotocol().equals("https")) {         return new proxy(proxy.type.http, new inetsocketaddress("proxyb1secure", 8443));     } else {         return new proxy(proxy.type.http, new inetsocketaddress("proxyb1", 8080));     } } 

what trickery of vba missing?

mystery solved. turns out security feature revolving around user agent (of things...).

java used these http headers (which successful):

get http://www.bing.com/search?q=stackoverflow http/1.1 accept: */* accept-language: en-us proxy-connection: keep-alive user-agent: java/1.7.0_79 host: www.bing.com 

and access sent these (which unsuccessful):

get http://www.bing.com/search?q=stackoverflow http/1.1 accept: */* accept-language: en-us user-agent: mozilla/4.0 (compatible; win32; winhttp.winhttprequest.5) proxy-connection: keep-alive host: www.bing.com 

by adding

xhr.setrequestheader "user-agent", "paymenoattention" 

it magically goes through. , confirm theory, adding access' user-agent java caused fail. so. that's what's up.

this attempt our brilliant network techs block macro viruses contacting malicious sites.