I am fixing a friends laptop and he is having trouble getting onto the internet. He is using MSN as his ISP but not using MSN Explorer. He is just using a normal dial up connection and then using internet explorer as his browser. I set this up for him originaly and it has been working fine. (He click on his dial up connection icon I setup on the desktop, waits for it to connect, and then opens internet explorer and browses the internet) However, now he clicks on his dial up connection icon, it connects to MSN. But when he opens up internet explorer it does give him this page can not be displayed. I have checked his internet properties and they all seem to be ok. I checked is IP's in dos and they are renewing like they are suppose to be and getting ip's when he connects. (However he can not ping website ip's or outside ip's) I did do an IE repair but that did not work. He did have allot of spyware that I removed, toolbars that I removed, and about 3 ISP's software that I removed. (AOL, Prodigy, Netscape, etc.) None of my efforts have been sucessfull. I also tried to connect it to my lan. (It has a built in Ethernet port) but even with the lan I does not pick up the DHCP server and does not get ip's. When I do the ipconfig /release it works, but the ipconfig /renew recieves an error. (Don't remember the exact error something about a port) Any ideas on how I can fix the problem. Your help is greatly appreciated. Thanks, -Mario-

Mario: MSN is also my ISP. I don't often have a problem with them, but when I do, I cure the issue by an uninstall/reinstall of their software. You didn't mention what version of MSN software you're using. I'm still running (and very happy with) 8.5. The latest, 9.0, is bloated and runs significantly slower than 8.5. Solarian

I've also been having this problem for the past 3 weeks. My service provider has told me that they are trying to narrow down the cause. Others are having the same problem. I think it is an XP problem. This is the first time I've been able to stay online for a long time. I think the problem may be related to recent Windows Update downloads.