Browsers don't connect but everything else works on XP home network

My home network is 3 XP/SP2 systems, one Windows 2K system, and a TiVo.
After installing and removing Cisco VPN software, all three of my browsers
(IE7, Fixefox 2, Opera 9) stop working after a few minutes after I reboot.
I can't get to port 80 (HTTP) but my newsgroup reader runs fine and I can
ping outside websites. The problem occurs when I'm plugged directly into
the cable modem and when I turn Windows Firewall off.

I've reset the router and cable modem multiple times. I've deleted all
traces of the Cisco VPN (I think) and I also deleted an AT&T Global Network
VPN (it was running fine before Cisco). I've run Norton and Registry
Cleaner to clean up the registry. I've deleted and recreated the LAN
connection and reinstalled the LAN drivers. I've checked my connection
settings and everything thing is "normal".

I am at the end of my rope...I'd appreciate any suggestions.

Cheers!
-rf

In article <(E-Mail Removed)>, says...
> My home network is 3 XP/SP2 systems, one Windows 2K system, and a TiVo.
> After installing and removing Cisco VPN software, all three of my browsers
> (IE7, Fixefox 2, Opera 9) stop working after a few minutes after I reboot.
> I can't get to port 80 (HTTP) but my newsgroup reader runs fine and I can
> ping outside websites. The problem occurs when I'm plugged directly into
> the cable modem and when I turn Windows Firewall off.
>
> I've reset the router and cable modem multiple times. I've deleted all
> traces of the Cisco VPN (I think) and I also deleted an AT&T Global Network
> VPN (it was running fine before Cisco). I've run Norton and Registry
> Cleaner to clean up the registry. I've deleted and recreated the LAN
> connection and reinstalled the LAN drivers. I've checked my connection
> settings and everything thing is "normal".
>
> I am at the end of my rope...I'd appreciate any suggestions.
>
Open a Command Prompt. Type:

ping www.theregister.co.uk

If you get an error message type:

ping 212.100.234.54

If that works, open up a web browser and in the address bar type:

http://212.100.234.54

If you get The Register page, for some reason your computer can't find
a DNS server.

--
Conor

Religion, fucking people over for millennia.

No joy. When I run the "Diagnose connection problems" option from the
Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage" message, I get this:

HTTP, HTTPS, FTP Diagnostic
HTTP, HTTPS, FTP connectivity

info FTP (Passive): Successfully connected to ftp.microsoft.com.
info HTTPS: Successfully connected to www.microsoft.com.
warn HTTP: Error 12029 connecting to www.microsoft.com: A connection with
the server could not be established
warn HTTP: Error 12029 connecting to www.hotmail.com: A connection with the
server could not be established
error Could not make an HTTP connection.

My other systems are working properly and port 80 isn't blocked (or if it
is, I can't figure out where). On IE7|Tools|Internet
options|Connections|Lan settings, everything is unchecked. I'm going to
disable everything unfamiliar in my startup routine to see if some
application is kicking in.
Thanks for your response-
rf

(E-Mail Removed) wrote in message
(E-Mail Removed):

> No joy. When I run the "Diagnose connection problems" option from the
> Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage" message, I get this:
>
> HTTP, HTTPS, FTP Diagnostic
> HTTP, HTTPS, FTP connectivity
>
> info FTP (Passive): Successfully connected to ftp.microsoft.com.
> info HTTPS: Successfully connected to www.microsoft.com.
> warn HTTP: Error 12029 connecting to www.microsoft.com: A connection
> with the server could not be established
> warn HTTP: Error 12029 connecting to www.hotmail.com: A connection
> with the server could not be established
> error Could not make an HTTP connection.
>
> My other systems are working properly and port 80 isn't blocked (or
> if it is, I can't figure out where). On IE7|Tools|Internet
> options|Connections|Lan settings, everything is unchecked. I'm going
> to disable everything unfamiliar in my startup routine to see if some
> application is kicking in.

Try also opening a Command Prompt (Start | Run | cmd) and running the
command "telnet news.bbc.co.uk 80" When you press return you should get some
sort of response back, even if it is only

HTTP/1.0 400 Bad request
Content-Type: text/html

<h2>Bad request</h2>

Connection to host lost.


If you get absolutely no response, your PC is blocking port 80.

After four or five minutes, the browsers fail, as does Telnet.

I've checked to see if some application installed a security policy but none
appear to be present. I've removed McAfee and will scrub the registry
again. A Windows repair is next, I think...

Cheers,
rf

On 24 Nov 2006, "Martin Underwood" <a@b> wrote:

>If you get absolutely no response, your PC is blocking port 80.

or a firewall rule in the router, perhaps? I had wondered about the
browser possibly having a proxy defined, but assume that was already
checked for. Now I'm plain curious, in case anyone I know gets the
same symptoms!

NoNeedToKnow wrote in message
(E-Mail Removed):

> On 24 Nov 2006, "Martin Underwood" <a@b> wrote:
>
>> If you get absolutely no response, your PC is blocking port 80.
>
> or a firewall rule in the router, perhaps? I had wondered about the
> browser possibly having a proxy defined, but assume that was already
> checked for. Now I'm plain curious, in case anyone I know gets the
> same symptoms!

I thought he said that another PC connected via the router was working OK -
that's why I suspected PC setup (eg software firewall) rather than router
setup. If other PCs on the network are also failing in the same way, then
I'd suspect router config.

There are no firewall rules in the router. Wireless is disabled (i.e.
nobody's hacked in) and the other PC's aren't afflicted. Even when I'm
plugged directly into the modem, it's still blocked. At this point, I'm
betting there's something left over in the registry but I don't know how to
locate it.

Cheers!
rf

Other PC's are fine; only one PC has a problem with port 80. Since port 80
is blocked even when the problem box is connected directly to the cable
modem, I'm reasonably sure this one is specific to this box.

This box had another weird problem: I had to reload XP to solve a BSOD
problem, and after the reload and in spite of reconfiguring everything (file
shares, system name, workgroup, killing simple file sharing, firewall,
etc.), I couldn't get the other systems on the network to see this one. The
bad one (we'll call him "Del", short "Dell") could see everybody else, could
map shared drives, etc. but I'd get the highly informative "system error 53"
whenever my "NET USE" configuration program ran. I've spent a couple of
weeks trying to figure this one out and I've Googled myself to death.

Here's what I get when I IPCONFIG /RENEW on Del:

IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.101
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : fe80::214:22ff:fe3e:beac%4
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1

I'm going to shut everything down and start planning for the XP Repair, I
guess...

Thanks,
rf

After the connection has failed and I open a new browser session, I see the
IP address of the site, not the URL, in the lower left-hand footer of the
window. I've downloaded Windows Defender (in case it finds something
Ad-Aware didn't).

-rf