Note : This is only a post from the Starcraft Technical Support Forum.

                 Disclaimer:
                 Editing your registry is potentially dangerous.  Windows gets cranky 
                 if you mess something up.  If you choose to follow these 
                 instructions, do so at your own risk, and follow them exactly.


                      If you've been trying to connect to battlenet and the program 
                 hangs up on the "Searching for fastest server" screen, and 
                 then comes back and says to try again later, this may work for you.  
                 (It worked for me.  I saw someone else's post about this and tried 
                 it.  However, his post didn't really give directions for people not 
                 already familiar with pinging and regediting, so here it is).

                 1)  Open your start menu.
                 2)   Select "Run"
                 3)   Type in "regedit" and hit enter
                 4)   Click the + beside HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
                 5)   Click the + beside SOFTWARE
                 6)   Click the + beside battle.net
                 7)   Click the folder entitled "Configuration"
                 8)   Double click "server list" on the list in the window on 
                 the right
                 9)   Open your start menu
                 10) Select "Programs"
                 11) Select "MS-DOS Prompt"

                     Now, in the server list you'll find a list of IP addresses, 
                 seperated by semi-colons, for example, 
                 "206.79.254.204;203.120.73.33".
                     In your MS-DOS window, type "ping" followed by the first 
                 IP address.  For example:

                 C:\WINDOWS>ping 206.79.254.204

                 Pinging 206.79.254.204 with 32 bytes of data:

                 Reply from 206.79.254.204: bytes=32 time=249ms TTL=25
                 Reply from 206.79.254.204: bytes=32 time=234ms TTL=23
                 Reply from 206.79.254.204: bytes=32 time=231ms TTL=25
                 Reply from 206.79.254.204: bytes=32 time=231ms TTL=25


                     So with the command "ping 206.79.254.204", we see that we 
                 are getting replies from that address with a time of about 230-250 ms.
                      Now repeat this command with the other IP addresses, one at a 
                 time.  You should come across something like this:

                 C:\WINDOWS>ping 209.67.136.171

                 Pinging 209.67.136.171 with 32 bytes of data:

                 Request timed out.
                 Reply from 209.67.128.149: Destination net unreachable.
                 Request timed out.
                 Reply from 209.67.128.149: Destination net unreachable.


                     Here we see that this address is not responding (actually 
                 slightly worse than not responding, we just plain can't get to it -- 
                 some sort of routing error, perhaps).

                     Write this address down, then delete it from the registry.

                     When deleting addresses, make SURE that the remaining addresses 
                 are seperated by semi-colons (;) and that there is no semi-colon at 
                 the very end of the list.

                     When done editing, close regedit, close your DOS prompt and open 
                 Starcraft.  Note that reinstalling Starcraft also, I guess, fixes 
                 this problem.  Perhaps it knows not to add those addresses to your 
                 registry now...?  ANYway...

                      My problem addresses were:
                 209.67.136.171
                 209.67.131.170
                 exodus.battle.net


                     The reason you should write down anything you delete is so you 
                 can ping again in a couple days and add them back if it works.  One 
                 of the addresses you delete may be the fastest server for you to hook 
                 up to (when it works).

                     Apparently "destination unreachable" causes the Starcraft 
                 pinger to hose up and decide battlenet is AWOL.  When I got on 
                 battlenet, there were 8000 people on it, so evidently this isn't a 
                 widespread problem.  (Either that or 8000 people figured out how to 
                 use regedit and ping.)

                      Your milage may vary.