So, my little brother likes to install really anoying crap on the family computer. Usually a quick Anti- Virus/Spyware will fix most things but nothing seems to be doing the trick this time.

The computer is on the network fine, can see the other computers and others can see it. However it cannot connect to the net. MSN/Firefox/IE wont connect.

Also, IE wont stay open. When you open it, it starts to load, and normally where it would have finished loading, it just shuts itself down. Nothing hairy I can see in TM would be closing it, it just seems to close itself.

Yes, yes, use Firefox. Well my mum cant. She knows IE (barely) and even different pictures in the top left corner means I (or my older brother) have to explain how she can get to hotmail to see her friends email (for the uptenth time)
So I would prefer to save IE somehow (/shudder)

Any Idea's?

(Also, my older brother does have a ghost somewhere, but he's away for 2 weeks and finding the right CD in his room is... well... harder then a fresh install)

Edit: Firefox now connects.
Still same problem with IE and MSN not connecting still.

if ff works.. just use that and tell em bad luck

spybot search and destroy, use advanced options and remove all BHO's and activeX plugins, check startup in adv options too, run spybot with latest def's reboot, fixed..




Maybe.




disclaimer: Dont blame me if this kills your pc.

get msn to run the connection fixer thing that happens when i cant connect. sometimes it'll fix dodgy settings.

To avoid a repeat, delete your brother.

Yeah cJay I already used Spyboy, and Spysweeper, and Hijackthis.

MSN Connection fixer thing? That just in file/options? (I use Trillian haven't touched MSN in years...)

Xy, if only it were that simple. Or make him learn to fix it himself.
But then mum would just break it anyway.

Also, Amusing story, about a year ago, he tried to hot swap in a new CD burner. But their computer is just junk left over after my older brother and/or I upgrade anyway so not much was lost.
Turn's out it was our fault, because we were busy and didn't help him fast enough.

last edited by Scooter at 20:58:26 19/Feb/07

open msn messenger (7.5 i have dunno bout others) and try and connect, when it fails, it'll ask whether you want to try and fix it or not.

have a look in the %windir%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts file, make sure there are no goofy entries put there by some dirty spyware app or something - unless you have special cirumstances you should probably only have an entry in there for "127.0.0.1 localhost"

also check proxy settings in control panel-->internet options - make sure there's no goofy proxy setting that is foiling your MS products from connecting

also, what changed to allow firefox to start working?

Go to google and find the following

superantispyware - it sounds dodgy but it works suprisingly well it manages to nuke a few very hard to remove things that most others won't budge

winsockfix - will reset all your networking crap in windows to defaults

dialafix - this is kinda the same as winsockfix but it resets a lot of windows files, dll's etc and can repair a lot of niggly windows issues. Just tick everything (except maybe time/date but it will fix that too if its borked :P)


Give them a run and see how you go, I use all 3 (plus more) of those regularly at work with a very high success rate at avoiding OS reloads.