Windows 7 Can't connect to internet after installing SP 1....

DeeMax45

Well-Known Member
My husband's laptop has Win7 Home Premium 64-bit on it. We were traveling all summer so when we returned home this week I went online with his computer to download and install all of the updates that had come out since we'd left in early May. These downloads included SP 1.

Everything appeared to install correctly and all of the other programs are operating correctly. The only thing is that he's unable to connect to the internet with IE 9 now. It was working fine the first few days we were home until I decided to download and install all of the updates. Since he was unable to get online with IE 9, I decided to download and install Mozilla FireFox 6.0.2 to see if that would work. He was able to get online with FireFox so I just figured that something got corrupted with IE 9. Just for the heck of it, I tried once more to get online with IE 9 and it worked fine. That was a couple of days ago, but he wasn't able to get online all day yesterday or so far today with either FireFox or IE. He's successfully connecting wirelessly to our router, but both IE and FireFox just keep saying that they're trying to connect. We're not trying to use both of the programs at the same time.

I did a full system virus scan and no threats were found so I haven't a clue what's going on. :confused: Can anyone help?

Thanks,

Dee
 
Seems like I just saw this same type of question a couple of days ago. But in a situation like this, I will usually open up the Network and Sharing center and confirm my network still shows Home instead of Public. Then click on Local Area Connection and the Details button and check the IP addresses to make sure they are close to what you expect.

Are all websites affected or just certain ones? There are some sites that do not work well if you have 3rd party cookies disabled, or some other setting that might have been changed with the addition of IE9.

Were you connecting to other sites with that computer on your trip?

What firewall and anti-virus are you running?

And of course it is always a good idea to reboot everything related to the network.
 
My network still shows Home instead of Public and I'm definitely connected to the internet because we can access our Weather Channel Desktop and it shows us the most recent info. We're also receiving notifications that there are both HP and Microsoft updates available to download.

The only problem is that neither FireFox or IE9 can connect to the internet. Both of the programs just sit there spinning trying to connect. I've tried entering URLs for sites other than Google, but nothing works.

We've been using IE9 for quite some time. We didn't go online with his computer during the trip, but it connected to the internet just fine for the first few days after we got home...clear up until after I downloaded and installed all of those updates including Win 7 SP 1.

That computer is using Windows Firewall and the free version of Avast Anti-virus.

Hmmm....and how would I go about "rebooting everything related to the network"?

Thanks for the response,

Dee
 
Would you mind trying a couple things first.
Type the following IP address into the address/url bar or your browser and hit enter
64.233.169.99
report back what happens
Reboot the computer in safemode with networking by tapping the F8 Key as the computer is booting and see if either or both of your browsers work
report back what happens
 
Hopefully Trouble's suggestion will help, but one reason the browsers may not be able to connect is that something is wrong with the DNS server. Putting an IP address bypasses that process.

You can reboot by unplugging the modem and router, give it about 30 seconds then replug the modem, and then the router. Rebooting the computer and possibly a cold boot may also help.

There seems to have been several folks that reported loosing browser capability after some updates. I do not know of an SP1 update that would have done that, and my IE9 update did not cause any problems. But is it hard to say for sure if those updates or even one for Avast is not related.
 
Well now....we're finally getting somewhere! Nothing happened when I tried entering the 64.233.169.99, but I tried both IE9 and FireFox after I did the reboot in Safe Mode with Networking and they both worked! (I've been told it's okay to have both browsers installed on the same computer, but not to try using them both at the same time...I gather it must cause some kind of conflict????)

Anyhow....now that we know the browsers will work in Safe Mode, how do we get them to work during normal operation?

I REALLY appreciate all of the help!

Thanks,

Dee
 
That's likely a result of some process running in normal mode startup that is not running in safemode.
You'll probably need to perform some Diagnostic Startup steps to chase down the offending product, but....
If it was me I would start with Avast. Remove it completely from the machine by first using the programs and features applet in the control panel and follow that up with the vendor specific proprietary removal tool reboot the machine even if not asked and see if the browsers start behaving better.
Regards
Randy

EDIT: And yes you can have multiple browsers on your machine (I have five), and no, I have never experienced any cross browser conflicts as I frequently have two or more running at any given time without issue.
 
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I'll be trying this in the couple of days. I'll start by uninstalling Avast and if that doesn't solve the problem then I'll step my way thru the other process which sounds like it won't be much fun. :-{

Sorry that I didn't get back with y'all earlier. I was tied up for a few days putting out other fires.

Thanks,

Dee
 
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