Client hangs if site configured in Windows registry is down

There are some preferences held in the registry path HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\JavaSoft\Prefs\xmage or something like that, one of which is a default server to connect your client to. If that server is down, the client hangs seemingly forever as soon as you start it up--doesn't take any inputs, can only kill the Java process to get out. I'm a Windows 7 user.