Explorer browser windows not launching

[paul4ut]

I have a good Internet connection.

My Firewall is disabled.

...but when I try to open a page in Internet Explorer, the page does not launch.

Anyone have an idea as to what's happening here?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

paulk@gvtc.com

[Ctrl-X]

Are you getting any error message? If so, which one?

[paul4ut]

No...no error messages.

Internet Explorer lauches but pages are black...never deploy.

This is the case for any web browser I try.

[Ctrl-X]

Pages are black? Does the address of the page appear in the address bar? Are you able to ping the address of the web site you're trying to reach?

[cluberti]

The other question would be, does this happen with other browsers (such as Firefox, Opera, etc)?

[Jeremy]

The most common thing that happens when someone is unable to access the Internet via IE, is they get the "This page cannot be displayed" message. But since the page is black, and nothing else happens, sounds to me like you may have a browser hijacker or some other sort of spyware, or even a virus.

Please run full system scans in Safe Mode with Ad-Aware SE, Spybot S&D, Windows Defender, CWShredder. Run HijackThis and post the log as an attachment to your post. Myself and others are very familiar with Windows files, and combined with easy Googling, spotting anything suspicious in the log won't be difficult.

Also, download Kaspersky Anti-Virus, install and update it and do a full scan with it as well.

FileMon is also very helpful in pinpointing which files on the harddrive any given program is accessing/being accessed by.

Cheers,

Jeremy

[paul4ut]

First, let me thank everyone for their help...I really appreciate it.

The problem still exists...

I need to clarify something...the pages are not "black." I said that, but what I meant to say was, "The pages are blank."

Yes, the message I'm getting is "This page cannot be displayed."

Yes, the address of the page (http://www.msn.com) appears in the Address Bar.

This happens with every browser I have.

I have my firewall turned off until I figure out what is wrong.

The connection appears good.

I ran an antivirus application.

Any advice?

Thanks

PS: In case you're wondering, I'm using another computer to investigate this problem.

ALSO...

The problem with this computer affects any application that requires a connection to the Internet.

WIth AOL IM, for example, a message appears forever that reads "connecting."

At the bottom of the screen my connection status reads "I've been connected online for 6 minutes," and then shows the connection speed.

Status says, "connected."

HERE IS AN INTERESTING POINT: I'm currently using a dial-up connection, but the same thing happened to me recently while using a wireless broadband connection on this same computer.

Many thanks for your help

[Jeremy]

Start > Run > cmd > ping www.google.com

What do you get?

[paul4ut]

Here's what I got:

Command Prompt-ping www.google.com

The NTVDN CPU has encountered an illegal instruction

(>>>Could be I don't know what I'm doing when trying to ping from XP.)

[Ctrl-X]

That's even stranger... Ping is a Win32 application that should never result in this error message (which is related to 16-bit applications running in a virtual DOS machine). Have you checked your system for viruses/spyware already?

There may be another executable called "ping.exe" somewhere on the disk that's found in the search path before the "real" one. To test, open a command prompt window and type

C:\WINDOWS\system32\ping.exe www.google.com

(Assuming your Windows folder is C:\WINDOWS).

Also make sure you don't have a proxy server configured: Internet Options / Connections tab / "LAN Settings" button / uncheck "Use a proxy server for your LAN" option.

[Zxian]

Have you run the system scans like Jeremy suggested?

- Ad-Aware

- Spybot S&D

- Windows Defender

- Avast! Home Edition

Install those programs (from a CD or USB key) and run the scans. You probably won't be able to update the definitions, but the default definitions might be able to pick up on something.

@Ctrl-X - You can enter %WINDIR% in place of the Windows directory. It'll make things more general than a hard-coded path.

[Ctrl-X]

@Ctrl-X - You can enter %WINDIR% in place of the Windows directory. It'll make things more general than a hard-coded path.

I know... [nit-pick]Officially it should be %SystemRoot%; %windir% is a left-over from the NT 4.0 days and actually points to %SystemRoot% (see "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment")[/nit-pick]

Anyway, I chose not to use it here in order not to confuse paul4ut... Plus, you never know if a trojan or spyware infection might have changed the %windir% value, and most people have their Windows installation in C:\WINDOWS anyway

[XP_2600]

you have to try this command as well:

sfc /scannow

and if it asked for windows xp insert it.