windows 7 weather gadget cannot connect to service

Have you checked whether your Internet Explorer is not set to Work Offline.

Update:

Microsoft has DISABLED the weather and currency gadgets via a recent Security Update, due to concerns over the vulnerability associated with these gadgets running on your computer. You can read more about it here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2719662 . Adjusting your computer's settings and all these other "suggestions" people are making, will NOT work. The function has been REMOVED from the operating system. It has also been removed from the Windows 8 operating system. There are "theorists" that either agree that there is a security issue within the gadgets or Microsoft just does not want to support gadgets (usually third party software) and thus, has disabled them in Windows 7 and eliminated them in Windows 8.

Thanks to DaveNYC for the Info. Spread the word because many people are facing this problem just like you.

My reward for messing around with the system date is that now all of my Windows Updates are coming in with the 2017! year. Never again. I had immediately returned the system date back to current but every Windows Update comes in with the 2017 year. Do not know how to fix this.

My god ... HOW can the Win Updates be '2017'?  When no such updates even exists ... we're at 2015 now.

Explain!

HOW and WHERE do you see the year 2017 on the Updates?

Start Win Update, click 'View Update History' on the left side, read the dates in the 'Date installed' column.

(Click ON the 'Date installed' column to sort by date, click several times to chose ascending or descending).

IF your computer/system time is set to todays date, then what you're saying is simply impossible, you're looking somewhere else, or you're intoxicated; by joy, some fumes or Equal ...