Windows 7 Weird Networking Problem

[ByteBoy]

I have Windows 7 x64 Pro. I installed Office 2007 and I cannot connect to the internet through Explorer or Firefox. (I was connecting fine before I installed Office 2007). However here is where it gets weird Windows 7 can connect to the internet to get updates. Windows 7 says it is connected to the Internet. I can access my other computers on the network and they can access the internet. I can ping internet sites by URL or IP address. But whenever I try to use IE or Firefox I get the error "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage" or "Server not found" respectively for those programs. It does not matter if I use a URL or an IP address. I cannot even access my router's IP address from those programs.

I have looked around and cannot find this exact error elsewhere. I have reset the internet properties. I have tried to manually enter the connection settings. I have looked for the Bonjour DNS Responder Service and I don't have it. I don't have the unidentified network problem. I have updated drivers.

 

[Jimbo22]

Curious; have you tried to reboot and check for MS updates thru windows. Try that.

 

[ByteBoy]

I have all the updates to Office and Windows installed (except for 2 optional ones (Windows Live Essentials and Office Live add-in)). It is almost like I have a proxy server set up for IE and Firefox, but I have double checked this in both the programs' internet settings and in the windows registry. Also, the Windows 7 troubleshooter finds no problems.

 

[Jimbo22]

Have you tried any adware, malware software for any bugs that maybe hiding or have corrupted something. Sometimes a good cleaning will resolve some waning issues.

 

[ByteBoy]

Solution!!!!

Ok, here is what I did to resolve the issue. I installed Microsoft Security Essentials, it found no problems. I installed System Suite 7 Pro, and the internet started working (when I did what scans I could it found no problems). While the internet was working I installed Spybot-Search and Destroy, it also found no problems. I uninstalled
System Suite 7, I could not connect to the internet again. Spybot still found no problems; however I noticed something weird: IE x64 could connect to the internet, IE x32 could not. I ran this in cmd.exe as an administrator "netsh winsock reset" and rebooted and now Firefox and IE (x64 and x32) both work.