Web browser window not opening.

[thorski]

Everything seems to be working on my laptop except I can not open my Explorer web browser. I get a window that pops up stating "www.######.com can not be found. Please check spelling and try again" The window pops up for every site I try to open. I can access, send and recieve email and other programs on my computer, just not my web browser. Suggestions? Do I have a virus??

I have had this lap top for 4 years and never had any issues with it. I guess I am due. Thanks.

[upnorth]

You may have virus. But it could be that IE doesn't have the connection set. Go to tools, options and then connections and make sure you have a connection setup for IE. Is this the only PC/laptop you connected to the internet in the house?

[thorski]

upnorth-

Thanks for the reply. I will give your suggestion a try.

No, we have other computers in the house. We have wi-fi. The other computers seem to be fine.

I have a sneaking suspicion that I may have a virus. With the kids home for the holiday break, I let my daughter use my laptop the other day. It wasn't until last night though when I started to have this problem.

[PierBridge]

Try to get a copy of Firefox onto some form of media and install that browser on your Notebook. You should probably using FF anyway.

[MNmikew]

It could be a virus or malware. I had it happen to mine a few days ago. IE would get not found for everything but firefox worked fine. Check your internet options. A recent virus checking malware pgm will set a proxy server set to your loopback address *127.0.0.1) causing it to not resolve the DNS.

in your IE browser:

go to TOOLS - INTERNET OPTIONS - CONNECTIONS - click on LAN SETTINGS - see if the checkbox by proxy server is set. If it is uncheck it and see if that fixes it.

[PierBridge]

Thats ringing a bell. I think I've just set the security settings back to the default settings and its taken care of the problem in the past.

[thorski]

Thanks to all for your advice. I had some bad stuff on my puter causing the problem. Got it all cleaned up, downloaded FF and now I'm off and running again.