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Internet access in safe mode only

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I can not access the internet in normal mode but I can in safe mode. This is small office net with three systems connecting to internet through Linksys BEFSR41 router to cable modem. The system in question is running Win XP SP2 and can communicate with the other systems in the p2p net and the other systems access internet normally. I have used msconfig to set up a minimum configuration (diagnostic mode) and still not able to access internet. I have reinstalled adapter, network configuration, etc. still no luck. I’m out of ideas.
Background – system had virus/trojan which corupted program files including some system files (XP SP1). I cleaned the virus and installed an XP SP2 upgrade and all worked except internet access.

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click Start–All Programs–Accessories–Command Prompt–type “ipconfig /release” (not the quotes)–then press the Enter key–then type “ipconfig /renew”–Enter (probably best to do this in Safe Mode although it shouldn’t make any difference).

If you get any error messages when doing this, navigate to the following URL which walks you through the steps on “How to determine and recover from Winsock2 corruption”.

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=811259

Repost and let us know if anything works.

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Poster rated this answer.
The network is working quite well in all aspects except internet access from this one system. But just to be sure I did the release/renew routine, but to no avail. It worked fine without any error message. I had already restored the winsock to cover that angle. Thank you for the suggestion. It’s certainly a good first step. Unfortunately I didn’t describe all the steps I had been through.

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you still have spyware. examine the running processes. turn off system restore to clean again in Safe Mode with Ad-Aware SE. run it again and post back with anything still there. that trojan brought you a re-infecting spyware stub betcha. if it turns out to be ‘nail.exe’ try removing it in safe mode with Eweido Security Suite. HijackThis also helpful with leftover mal browser helper objects and search hijacks…

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you still have spyware. examine the running processes. turn off system restore to clean again in Safe Mode with Ad-Aware SE. run it again and post back with anything still there. that trojan brought you a re-infecting spyware stub betcha. if it turns out to be ‘nail.exe’ try removing it in safe mode with Eweido Security Suite. HijackThis also helpful with leftover mal browser helper objects and search hijacks…

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Poster rated this answer.
I concur with your theory of malware being at work here. I just haven’t been able to uncover it. I have been running with System Restore off since my first pass with the antivirus program that caught the trojan (AVG). I wish I had recorded the name of that villian. I have run multiple times the two spyware programs I am using, “Spy Sweeper” and “Xoftspy” which did get rid of quite a bit of ‘stuff’. I followed your suggestion and ran Ad-Aware SE and it did find a couple of low threat items to deal with. However, we still don’t have a fix. Both AV and Antispyware have been run in both normal and safe modes. I’m not familiar with HijackThis but will try to get up to speed on it this weekend. Thanks for your ideas. We’ll see if this last one helps.

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What Sgt. Shultz wrote. if that doesn’t work back up data and reinstall os.

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Poster rated this answer.
Well, your right of course. But this is like the first post in that it was an obvious first step, this is the obvious last resort but the very thing I am trying to avoid. I have the data backed up just in case but I have so many programs on this system many of which were downloads from the net. Recreating them all is a sizable task. Enough so that I’m investing inumerable hours trying to avoid it. Thank you just the same.

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I will suggest you remove your NIC from device manager and reistall it. Make sure you do it in regural mode.

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Poster rated this answer.
Ya, that was done early on. It did restore the local network but didn’t do anything to restore access to the internet. Thanks for the input.

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Point value changed by question poster.

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I’ve noticed something else a little strange. I use Firefox to access the internet. (I’ve tried IE and it doesn’t work either.)If I’m disconnected from the network and attempt to connect, I get the message “www.yahoo.com is not available.” When I attempt to browse while connected to the network, I get the message “the connection was refused when attempting to contact http://www.yahoo.com”. Is there a Firefox guru out there that can tell me what triggers that different response.

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did you at any point have firewall software installed IE norton internet security / zonealarm ? based on that aspect I may be of more assistance.

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Also forgot to ask, in safe mode I assume that from command line you can “IPCONFIG/RENEW” just fine no errors, if you are in regular mode have you tried “IPCONFIG/RENEW” from command line? Any errors?

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Poster rated this answer. Your suggestion got me back on the right track. Norton Internet Security had become corupted somewhere along the way. It would neither run without error nor was I able to uninstall it. Checking Symantec support info I was able to download their “uninstall everything” (my words not theirs) tool. Once NIS was uninstalled my internet access came back. Thank you.

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Reinstall the OS from scratch

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Poster rated this answer.

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Zack,
I do have Norton Internet Security installed although it and Norton Antivirus are not working (using AVG for AV protection). I do not get any errors when executing IPCONFIG/RENEW in normal mode. Maybe I should try uninstalling NIS since it’s not working.

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This question was closed by the author

Here’s how I solved it

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This problem plagued me for almost a week on a customers computer. I followed every tidbit of advice I could find on the net and caused more problems than solutions. It occurred to me that years ago there was a conflict with and Antivirus program on a server I was maintaining and I had to find a removal tool for that specific AV solution. This computer had been running Norton so I ran the appropriate removal tool and Voila! Internet traffic was restored. I found not only the Norton removal tool, but also tools for McAfee and AVG. Hope this helps someone else with the same issue!

[Author]

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