A big PC Problem; for techies. Please help!

Alright...here's the symptoms...

Nothing to do with a virus either...

Most of my windows programs that access the internet CAN'T do so. IE works just fine, as does Kazaa...but other programs that require a connection to the internet fail when its called upon. For instance, Media Player cannot play streaming ASX files....Real Player won't work at all...my CD ripping program, FreeRip, can't access the CDDB off the net...SoulSeek, another P2P program can't ever connect to the servers...it's such a hassle.

Now I'm required to "activate" my copy of MSWORD2002 over the net, and you guessed it, it can't access the internet either.

Does anyone have any idea what the fuck is going on? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

peace,
ray

methinks all the big computer nerds are off at a lan party or something.. this question would've usually been answered within a few minutes

Let me guess... you are on a school LAN? If so you are firewalled... well, you probably are anyway. You need a proxy server to access the network... and the aps aren't setup to use one.

What you need to do is find out what the proxy setting is in IE... Look under Tools/Internet Options then go to the Connections tab and hit LAN settings.

See if a proxy is set in there, and if it is... see if it will work in other apps... may require authentication though... if this is a campus LAN get in touch with the IT guys and say... MY SHIT DON'T WORK... FIX IT!

-Nick

*buzz*

Sorry, I'm at home.
No routers, just a direct connection from the Network card, to the cable modem.

Windows XP? If so make sure you turned off the integrated firewall on your LAN but doing so can open you up to the Blaster virus and such.

Has it ever worked before? Made any changes?

Kid Aphex said:

*buzz*

Sorry, I'm at home.
No routers, just a direct connection from the Network card, to the cable modem.

Click to expand...

Damn, that would have been an easy one... and someone else would have had to fix it! OK, next... yeah, it is acting like you are firewalled, you will have to see what your firewall rules are set in XP...

Hmmm... Though, I don't think the default settings would conflict with too much, and especially not one of their programs trying to register!

-Nick

Well, I "figured it out" I suppose you could say...

I used to run Zone Alarm. Great prog. But a while back, I uninstalled it. It was the only firewall I'd ever run...so I figured it had to do something with that.

So I RE-installed it, then UNinstalled it again without using it [aka, without telling it what to block, and what not to block as it encounters incoming/outgoing data] and after that second uninstall, things are working fine again.

Tada!

Kid Aphex said:

Well, I "figured it out" I suppose you could say...

I used to run Zone Alarm. Great prog. But a while back, I uninstalled it. It was the only firewall I'd ever run...so I figured it had to do something with that.

So I RE-installed it, then UNinstalled it again without using it [aka, without telling it what to block, and what not to block as it encounters incoming/outgoing data] and after that second uninstall, things are working fine again.

Tada!

Click to expand...

yeah I had the exact same thing happen to me. Where somehow Zone Alarm's setting still affected my computer even after uninstall.

EvilMike said:

yeah I had the exact same thing happen to me. Where somehow Zone Alarm's setting still affected my computer even after uninstall.

Click to expand...

The main reason for that is because most firewall apps are basically an interface over the systems own firewall rules... they just help you configure it easier... Good to hear you got it fixed though,

-Nick

zonealarm is known to corrupt some downloads....

i use sygate, it works better than ZA imo... tiny personal is meant to be good too.