I have the same problem.
it runs with netscape but not in IE
IE problem only came out when u r not
connected to internet.

solutions:
open IE.
when dialog box appear refuse work offline. choose try again instead.
type http://localhost:XXXX
where XXXX is tomcat port number.
the tomcat should serve the page.

Hi,

It does sound strange this behavior. localhost is always recognized and I'm using it every time i need to test some code. I'm afraid that the problem it's somewhere else. First be sure that the http connector of tomcat is listening on port 8080 (check that out on server.xml), then be sure that tomcat is up and running.

Another option, but reading your message it doesn't look possible, is that your browser is using a proxy server even for local addresses.