Email & program updates but no IE6 webpage access

[Michael Seidner]

I was trying to help my brother over the phone with an IE6 problem. Several
days ago, he suddenly lost the ability to open web pages. He has WindowsXP
Home w/SP2. He can still use Outlook Express to get his emails and can
still download updates from applications & windows update. He just can't
access websites. He gets message that say, "Page cannot be displayed" or
"cannot access server". He has had a lot of spyware problems (I think,
because of his daughter's web activity) and I had him run Spybot S & D,
Adaware SE and his Norton AntiVirus scan. There was a lot found and a lot
removed, but still no web access. I have heard that even after removing the
malware that the damage is often still there in the registry.
I had him try restoring a system restore point from a time when IE was
working well, but System Restore could not complete the restore process.
Does he probably have Winsock problems or TCP/IP protocol ? If so, does
anyone have helpful info as to how to proceed?

 

[Jon Kennedy]

Sometimes after removing spyware, if it's gotten itself hooked into the
Winsock TCP/IP stack and that's been mangled by the removal process, it's
necessary to repair it.

Winsock repair tools:
LSPFix- all versions of Windows http://www.cexx.org/lspfix.zip
Winsock2 Fix- Win98, ME
http://www.bu.edu/pcsc/internetaccess/winsock2fix.html
LavaSoft- all versions of Windows-
http://digital-solutions.co.uk/lavasoft/whndnfix.zip

Ad-Aware also has a diagnostic plug-in for it's program called LSP Explorer:
http://www.lavasoft.de/software/addons/lspexplorer.shtml

If no joy, then more spyware cleaning may be necessary....

HijackThis direct download:
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/files/hijackthis.zip
Tutorial on how to use HijackThis:
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/htlogtutorial.html
Then post it's output log to the forum here for analysis and feedback by the
parasite experts:
http://www.spywareinfo.com/forums/
Or the other HijackThis Logs forums listed here:
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/forums.html

Or try this program to get some of the most nasty malware:
CWShredder direct download:
http://aumha.org/downloads/cwshredder.zip

An alternate resource for all of this and more:
http://www.aumha.org/secure.htm

If all is clean and there are still problems....

How to Reinstall or Repair Internet Explorer and Outlook Express in Windows
XP (Q318378)
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;Q318378

 

[Frank Saunders, MS-MVP IE/OE]

I was trying to help my brother over the phone with an IE6 problem.
Several
days ago, he suddenly lost the ability to open web pages. He has
WindowsXP
Home w/SP2. He can still use Outlook Express to get his emails and can
still download updates from applications & windows update. He just can't
access websites. He gets message that say, "Page cannot be displayed" or
"cannot access server". He has had a lot of spyware problems (I think,
because of his daughter's web activity) and I had him run Spybot S & D,
Adaware SE and his Norton AntiVirus scan. There was a lot found and a lot
removed, but still no web access. I have heard that even after removing
the
malware that the damage is often still there in the registry.
I had him try restoring a system restore point from a time when IE was
working well, but System Restore could not complete the restore process.
Does he probably have Winsock problems or TCP/IP protocol ? If so, does
anyone have helpful info as to how to proceed?

Did you update AdAware and Spybot S & D before using them? You should,
every time.

--
Frank Saunders, MS-MVP, IE/OE
Please respond in Newsgroup only. Do not send email
http://www.fjsmjs.com
Protect your PC
http://www.microsoft.com./athome/security/protect/default.aspx
http://defendingyourmachine.blogspot.com/

 

[Michael Seidner]

Yep, always

Did you update AdAware and Spybot S & D before using them? You should,
every time.

--
Frank Saunders, MS-MVP, IE/OE
Please respond in Newsgroup only. Do not send email
http://www.fjsmjs.com
Protect your PC
http://www.microsoft.com./athome/security/protect/default.aspx
http://defendingyourmachine.blogspot.com/

 

[Frank Saunders, MS-MVP IE/OE]

Yep, always

Try booting into Safe Mode and running them there.
Also, CWShredder:
http://www.intermute.com/products/cwshredder.html
but make sure you have LSPFix on hand in case removing the spyware breaks
Winsock.
http://www.cexx.org/lspfix.htm

--
Frank Saunders, MS-MVP, IE/OE
Please respond in Newsgroup only. Do not send email
http://www.fjsmjs.com
Protect your PC
http://www.microsoft.com./athome/security/protect/default.aspx
http://defendingyourmachine.blogspot.com/

 

[Michael Seidner]

With SP2 you are supposed to be able to reset the "LSP" by going START/RUN
and typing "netsh winsock reset catalog" to fix or typing "netsh winsock
show catalog" to show current setting. Are you familiar with this? Does
this work similar to LSPfix?

 

[Frank Saunders, MS-MVP, IE/OE]

With SP2 you are supposed to be able to reset the "LSP" by going START/RUN
and typing "netsh winsock reset catalog" to fix or typing "netsh winsock
show catalog" to show current setting. Are you familiar with this? Does
this work similar to LSPfix?

Yes.

--
Frank Saunders, MS-MVP, IE/OE
Please respond in Newsgroup only. Do not send email
http://www.fjsmjs.com
Protect your PC
http://www.microsoft.com./athome/security/protect/default.aspx
http://defendingyourmachine.blogspot.com/