Hello all,
This one's got me stymied...
My Mom just bought a brand new Dell desktop with XP Pro on it. Not
refurbed, but brand-new. She took delivery and got it powered up on
Wednesday, got her DSL installed on Friday, and didn't touch a thing until I
called her Saturday morning. I walked her through installing AIM Pro, using
which I then shared and controlled her desktop for the purpose of configuring
everything and giving her a computer tutorial.

At work, the first thing I do when I start a newly delivered machine is hit
Windows Updates to ensure everything's at its latest. I did this with Mom's
machine and IE opened and crunched for a while before showing me a Page
Cannot Be Displayed error. It's running IE6, so I know now that it
definitely needs some updates.

Checked all IE options and found nothing out of place, but reset all
defaults just to be sure, no go.

Downloaded and installed Firefox, tried http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/
through brand new installation, no go.

Tried www.microsoft.com via Firefox, no go.

Same story for support.microsoft.com. The machine seems to stumble on
anything that has "microsoft" in the URL.

I checked all those sites on my own machine and they all opened just fine in
both Firefox and IE7.

Spoke with her ISP, they said they're not blocking anything microsoft, and
that they "recommend running Windows Updates to all their customers". Cool,
man...

Downloaded and installed IE7 to Mom's machine via MajorGeeks.com. Still no
go.

Disconnected desktop sharing and closed AIM Pro, walked Mom through Start >
Windows Update, still no go, same result.

Dell.com, CNN.com, AIM.com, aimpro download site, and numerous other sites
all work fine. It only hangs at things with "microsoft" in the URL.

HijackThis shows nothing out of place, aside from standard Dell bloatware,
through which I've never had a problem when working with work machines.

Installed WhatsRunning, disabled everything bloat from startup, rebooted,
still no go.

Installed Avast Home antivirus, scan shows nothing.

Less than 10 files created in Windows\System and System32 folders since Mom
powered it up, and they all check out fine.

Standard frequency of reboots included throughout these steps. I haven't
tried anything in Safe Mode yet, as the machine's 600 miles away from me.
Mom's an absolute beginner with computers, and I haven't worked up the
courage for that phone call yet. Have not yet contacted Dell either, as I
was hoping to find something I may have forgotten after searching the web.
Found nothing even close.

I'm hoping someone here can think of anything I may have forgotten.

Thanks in advance,
--
Matt the Helpdesk Guy