"GnarlyCar" <GnarlyCar@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:48C99D0C-61DD-4696-A6CC-07588035D3BE@microsoft.com...
> 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.
Are you saying that IE can reach other sites?
If not your symptom could be explained as blocking by a firewall
or a proxy being configured but not operating.
>
> 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...
Switch to a cmd window and use nslookup to verify that the lookups
are being done in a timely fashion. BTW for microsoft sites you will
probably notice that they are aliases for other caching servers.
In that case be aware that the only way to cache that lookup in XP
is to ping -n 1 both the alias name and the canonical name.
E.g. pinging just the alias name caches only the CNAME record
and not the A record containing the IP address. Use ipconfig /displaydns
to see these details. Getting a lookup cached and using it within its
Time To Live might help IE make a connection.
Use telnet 80 to show that you can reach an HTTP server using
such a lookup. It's better than ping because then you know that
you can establish an HTTP connection with a site.
Again though if it involves an alias and its canonical name
using just the alias would not cache the lookup.
You could also use Fiddler2 with its Request Builder (press F9)
to do a similar connectivity test with the additional advantage,
if something goes wrong with the request, that Fiddler tries to give you
a more intelligent guess about what is wrong than the abysmally useless
DNS error message that IE is usually limited to giving.
>
> 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.
Deja vu. I was confounded by symptoms like this just yesterday.
Turned out it must have been One-Care Family Safety. Disabling it
and its service was not sufficient. I had to actually uninstall that product
before IE requests could reach the Internet. Before then there were
absolutely no clues about the cause of the blockage. It made me think
that we the users are sometimes caught in the cross-fire of competing
viral technologies from both the malware and anti-malware forces.
Poor usability seems to be the accepted collateral damage from that war.
Good luck
Robert Aldwinckle
---
>
> 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
>