ideas on an active connection, but can't browse

[Jim]

Anyone else noticed this happening a lot lately? I work at a small computer
shop, and have noticed an increase of customers experiencing this. using the
machine i can ping/telnet to my hearts content, however i cannot browse. At
first glance i can tell the machine is riddled with spyware/malware, but i
havent narrowed it down to a specific one to be the cause of this symptom.
6/10 times i see the netsky virus. but i havent heard about a strain
rendering IE helpless. After i remove all spyware/viruses this problem is
still there. any help to pinpoint it would be appreciated.

 

[Smoker]

Anyone else noticed this happening a lot lately? I work at a small computer
shop, and have noticed an increase of customers experiencing this. using the
machine i can ping/telnet to my hearts content, however i cannot browse. At
first glance i can tell the machine is riddled with spyware/malware, but i
havent narrowed it down to a specific one to be the cause of this symptom.
6/10 times i see the netsky virus. but i havent heard about a strain
rendering IE helpless. After i remove all spyware/viruses this problem is
still there. any help to pinpoint it would be appreciated.

A corrupted Winsock2 can cause a browser not to open or to open and
immediately close. Search Google about it or even Microsoft where you'll get
told to basically just delete every instance of Winsock2 from the registry.
When you reboot I guess it auto replaces itself with a good version, if it's
even necessary. I know this works for me, but google it and you'll see a ton
of problems related to it.