Eclipse Helios not able to install m2e - eclipse

Question

I am very new to the Maven. I am trying to install m2e plugin in my Eclipse (eclipse-jee-helios-SR1-win32) from the Eclipse Marketplace. My Eclipse folder is in c:\ (c:\eclipse). It downloads and installs it properly (at least it looks so!) and then ask to restart Eclipse. I do restart it. But as soon as it restarts, it starts downloading some stuff and I get the following error:
eclipse.buildId=M20100909-0800
java.version=1.6.0_18
java.vendor=Sun Microsystems Inc.
BootLoader constants: OS=win32, ARCH=x86, WS=win32, NL=en_US
Framework arguments: -product org.eclipse.epp.package.jee.product
Command-line arguments: -os win32 -ws win32 -arch x86 -product org.eclipse.epp.package.jee.product
Error
Fri May 27 11:17:41 EDT 2011
Unable to update index for central|http://repo1.maven.org/maven2
java.io.IOException: An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host
at org.maven.ide.eclipse.internal.index.AsyncFetcher$PipedErrorInputStream.checkError(AsyncFetcher.java:181)
at org.maven.ide.eclipse.internal.index.AsyncFetcher$PipedErrorInputStream.read(AsyncFetcher.java:188)
at java.io.PipedInputStream.read(PipedInputStream.java:361)
at java.io.InputStream.read(InputStream.java:85)
at java.util.Properties$LineReader.readLine(Properties.java:418)
at java.util.Properties.load0(Properties.java:337)
at java.util.Properties.load(Properties.java:325)
at org.sonatype.nexus.index.updater.DefaultIndexUpdater.downloadIndexProperties(DefaultIndexUpdater.java:498)
at org.sonatype.nexus.index.updater.DefaultIndexUpdater.access$100(DefaultIndexUpdater.java:74)
at org.sonatype.nexus.index.updater.DefaultIndexUpdater$IndexAdaptor.setProperties(DefaultIndexUpdater.java:780)
at org.sonatype.nexus.index.updater.DefaultIndexUpdater.fetchAndUpdateIndex(DefaultIndexUpdater.java:954)
at org.sonatype.nexus.index.updater.DefaultIndexUpdater.fetchAndUpdateIndex(DefaultIndexUpdater.java:138)
at org.maven.ide.eclipse.internal.index.NexusIndexManager.updateRemoteIndex(NexusIndexManager.java:1072)
at org.maven.ide.eclipse.internal.index.NexusIndexManager.updateIndex(NexusIndexManager.java:1025)
at org.maven.ide.eclipse.internal.index.NexusIndexManager$1.run(NexusIndexManager.java:632)
at org.maven.ide.eclipse.internal.index.IndexUpdaterJob.run(IndexUpdaterJob.java:71)
at org.eclipse.core.internal.jobs.Worker.run(Worker.java:54)
Caused by: java.io.IOException: An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host
at sun.nio.ch.SocketDispatcher.read0(Native Method)
at sun.nio.ch.SocketDispatcher.read(SocketDispatcher.java:25)
at sun.nio.ch.IOUtil.readIntoNativeBuffer(IOUtil.java:233)
at sun.nio.ch.IOUtil.read(IOUtil.java:200)
at sun.nio.ch.SocketChannelImpl.read(SocketChannelImpl.java:236)
at org.jboss.netty.channel.socket.nio.NioWorker.read(NioWorker.java:322)
at org.jboss.netty.channel.socket.nio.NioWorker.processSelectedKeys(NioWorker.java:281)
at org.jboss.netty.channel.socket.nio.NioWorker.run(NioWorker.java:201)
at org.jboss.netty.util.internal.IoWorkerRunnable.run(IoWorkerRunnable.java:46)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.runTask(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:886)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:908)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:619)
Does anyone has ANY idea what is this? I repeated the process thrice, repeated on fresh installation of Eclipse, same problem. My colleague is using same version of Eclipse and has done the same process. He was able to install m2e in < 1 minute! This is so frustrating!
EDIT 1:
I have configured Proxy Settings in Eclipse Network Connections and those settings are working fine for my colleagues. So I guess it is not a proxy issue.

Answer 1

Although the Public Maven address itself isn't browsable anymore recently, this is more likely due to a Network Connections settings in your Eclipse.
See this answer to set your proxy if you have one, and more generally, check the "Network Connections" settings of your Eclipse's colleague to ake sure you have the same.
For information/archive, regarding the browse status of http://repo1.maven.org/maven2:
The raw browsing ability was originally removed to prevent automatic web crawler/scraper activity from de-stabilizing the Central servers.
Some of that ability has been returned.
It is currently possible to browse at levels deeper than the root, /org, /com, and /net.
So, if you try to navigate to http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/org, for example, you will see a static page with a link to the appropriate Browse view on http://search/maven.org.
However, if you go even one level deeper, to http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/org/apache, the standard directory browse functionality will be in place.

Answer 2

Found simple solution. Just did an update for Eclipse and it worked!