What's wrong with his laptop?

Question

My dad's laptop can be connected to the internet and he can use his yahoo messenger but for some reason he can't use internet explorer. it gives him an error message and 3 different options and he said he can't get his default webpage to come up or any webpage to come up. it says that it can't connect to the web. Anyone know what could be wrong and a simple way to put it to him? (he's computer illiterate, lol)

I can only tell you what my computer illiterate father told me over the phone. I could fix this problem if I was looking at his computer, but we live far away from each other. He doesn't understand me when I tell him what to do on the computer. He's making me mad, he won't let me connnect to his computer through remote assistance.

Answer 1

Maybe the the proxy has been altered. Did he know the proxy he is using or should there be no proxy? Ask the system administrator or your ISP for that matter.

To set Internet Explorer not to use any proxy:
- Tools | Internet Options | Connections Tab and on the lower part, click on the button labelled "LAN Settings" and uncheck all the checkboxes.

To set Internet Explorer use proxy specified by sys admin or ISP:
- Tools | Internet Options | Connections Tab and on the lower part, click on the button labelled "LAN Settings" and make sure that the Proxy server is selected and proper IP or server name and port 80 (or 8080) is entered in the field.

Reset Internet Explorer settings
-go to Tools | Internet Options | Advanced tab and on the lower part of the windows, there is a Reset Internet Explorer settings section...click on the "Reset..." button.

Answer 2

This is almost certainly a firewall issue.
Are you running any new software?
did you recently add Zone Alarm or qany other third-party firewall software to the computer?
Are you behind an external firewall of some kind? (some routers and wireless devices have firewall capabilities.

In my opinion you need to find out what kind of firewall you are using and configure it to grant traffic for internet explorer.

In windows:
Open up your help menu and search for the word "firewall"
one of the options that shows up in the search is "turn windowsw firewall off or on" or some such.
Read up on that, and try turning your windows firewall off.

If you can connect to the internet with IE with the firewall off, then you know it IS a firewall problem. if you still CAN NOT connect properly, then perhaps internet explorer has become corrupted. You can download a new copy from microsoft. Or better still, try Firefox!.

Granting exceptions with the windows firewall is easy, look at the exceptions tab, and make sure internet explorer is one of the exceptions.

Whatever the result, make sure you turn that firewall back on!

Answer 3

It almost sounds like IE7 was installed in the auto updates. What 3 options is he getting. I would have him go into Add/Remove programs and uninstall IE and reboot the machine if this was the case it will revert to IE6 and he should be crusin'

Answer 4

Make sure it isn't set to "work off line" if it is set it to online. Of course it would help a tiny bit if you included what the error was and what the three options were.

Answer 5

sounds like the browser has been corrupted... either try cleaning or reinstalling (i would suggest the first method to start)

get these free tools... adaware(lavasoft.com) spybot(safer-networking.org) HiJackThis(trend.com) winsockfix v1.2(majorgeeks.com)
install and run the adaware/spybot updater
disable restore
start-run-apps-accessories-sys... disk cleanup
reboot safe mode w/ networking (continually press f8 upon reboot)
Run adaware and spybot deleting anything they find.
Run Hijackthis (this shows all BHO's on ur browser~very important)
Run free online scan (trend.com bitdefender.com pandasoftware.com) remove any findings
Run winsockfix v1.2
reboot
enable restore


you might also try these commands in your run box
start run cmd ~
ipconfig /release
ipconfig /flushdns
ipconfig /renew
netsh int ip reset
regsvr32 softpub.dll
netsh int ip reset resetlog.txt
netsh winsock reset catalog
netsh interface ip delete arpcache