[cumpstona]

I recently did a system restore on my computer to clean it up and hopefully improve speed of operation. It restored back to the old Internet Explorer 6 as it's search engine. For some reason, it will not let me open any microsoft programs (microsoft.com, hotmail, etc.). The internet works fine, but when I go to these websites, they won't access them. I was trying to download an updated internet explorer, but can't access the microsoft webpage. I have tried a trojan remover and have antivirus protection through my internet provider. Any ideas what has happened and what I can do to fix this? Any help is much appreciated.

 

[pip22]

"It restored back to the old Internet Explorer 6 as it's search engine"

Welcome to the forum, cumpstona
You should be aware that Internet Explorer is a web browser, not a search engine.

Now, as to your problem. If you definitley have an internet connection and that is not the cause, I remember that same problem happenning to me and here's what fixed it for me:

Open Internet Explorer and click Tools > Internet Options.

Click the Connections tab.
Click the LAN Settings button.
You should now see three tick-boxes.
This top one needs to be ticked: Automatically detect settings
The other two boxes below that need to be unticked.

So correct as necessary, then click 'OK'.
Close Internet Explorer.
Re-open Internet Explorer

My apologies if that doesn't work or the LAN settings are already okay.
As with most Windows problems, they can have a varietary of different causes. The trick is finding the right fix. Please post back if your problem is not solved.

If you start a new thread for this problem, please be sure to mention that you've already checked that the LAN settings are okay, otherwise you will no doubt be asked to check it again and getting nowhere fast.

 

[cumpstona]

I checked the LAN settings and they were already checked as you had specified. I don't think the problem is with Internet Explorer, because I downloaded Safari and Firefox, and they have the same problem. The internet searches seem to work, but will not load microsoft's web page or hotmail. When I type in Microsoft.com as address, it says "cannot find server". Any further suggestions would be much appreciated.

 

[cumpstona]

I figured it out. My MTU was set too high. I reduced it down to 1492 and all the websites work fine.