Windows 7 Connection Errors Slowly Growing Worse

[Sillyville]

Hello, I've had windows 7 for a few months now and have slowly been encountering more and more networking errors. I can't remember how it started but I can describe what is wrong now. To start my web browser works, however only with firefox. IE and Chrome were once working but stopped, they say web page not available. Another issue is that my firewall is off, and I cannot turn it on, I've tried all all these things but trying to have Action Center turn it on and manually turning it on failed. To try and narrow down what the problem could be these are some common issuse that seem to be related. -The Windows Update cannot connect.
-Updates on most of my programs cannot connect.
-All googled web addresses seem extremely long and filled with random letters and % symbols. I mean REALLY long
-I cannot connect to my schools server hosted folders.
-All browsers but Firefox cannot connect.
-MSN live cannot connect (says improper Proxy or Firewall settings).
-I am unable to download anything from Microsofts website (ie. Windows Updates and Malware remover are 0byte.exe files)


There are a few more relevant to not being able to connect that I'm sure I cannot think of at the moment.

Any help would be fantastic
Thanks

 

[RAK]

Maybe someone has a solution, but it looks like a reinstall.
I don't think a restore will work, but worth a try, as the backups have probably inherited the problem