I have an XP laptop which used to connect to my modem/router wirelessly fine until I got a virus or two (long story). I have removed the viruses (win32/huer and win32/virut) which removed the userinit.exe program. After this was removed I could not log in, so I did a system restore to before the viruses affected PC. Have done another scan, and all seems to be clean. Now the laptop will not connect to the router through wireless or ethernet. I keep getting the auto config IP (192.254.x.x). If I manually set the IP, then it connects (wireless and ethernet), and I can ping the router, but not admin it though the net connection. The MTU appears to be 1472, not sure if thats a problem though. I have tried another system restore, but says it cannot be restored (in safe mode as well). There was a moment when everything worked (ethernet connected properly, and I could even reach facebook). I took cable out to see if wireless would work, and nada... Now I cant get it to connect again. My brand new vista laptop works fine, so I doubt it is a problem with the router. Any suggestions on where to look from here would be great as I am stumped.

A shot in the dark, but this has been known to work: Winsock Fix: http://www.snapfiles.com/get/winsoc... WinSimple Software CompTIA A+ Certified

sometimes a shot in the dark is all it takes. I ran the tool, and have ethernet and wireless connected, working fine. Think I will do the essential stuff before I unconnect one of them, just in case. Thanks for your help. After an hour on the phone with the ISP support guy (who was pretty cluey) and about 2 hours surfing, it was fixed in 25 minutes... Cheers.