My machine does not FTP. It gets on the internet fine and all www addresses are found but when I try an ftp or exit trying pinging well known ftp's using the dos commands it does not work? ANy idea's please?

So your trying to use internet explorer to browse Ftp's? Why dont u download a real ftp client like Flash FXP? Or u could download leechftp, its free. I used internet explorer a couple times but i coulndt get it to work on some so i gave up trying. U could browse your internet properties and see if there is a setting in there..I think also the server would have to support using internet explorer for it to work properly so get a real ftp client and skip the mess...later

When I try an FTP site that won't connect with IE, I switch over to Opera which usually has no problem at all. http://download.com.com/3000-2356-8789869.html?tag=lst-0-2

Sounds like you have a firewall of some sort. The default one from Microsoft'll do that, as will Norton Internet Security, yada yada yada. If it's the Microsoft one you can look at the logfile for the firewall C:\WINDOWS\pfirewall.log (or) D:\WINDOWS\pfirewall.log (or whatever) ---- Turn on ALL ICMP permissions. i.e. allow ECHO, PING, etc. That should do it. ----- Most likely you're attempting direct connections (TCP) and it's working OK. UDP, ICMP and other goodies will be tweaked by a firewall. (You can set your FTP program to try PASSIVE mode, that'll work with the firewall).

If you have Netscape SmartDownload installed, go to Start/Programs/Netscape SmartDownload/Disable SmartDownload.