I've got a Gigabyte mother board with an AMD 2.3Ghz Athalon running XP PRO with all the updates. Until a week ago, everything was fine. Then I was struck with the SmitFraud worm. I thought I'd cleared it all out OK, but I've got a new problem and I wonder if it is caused by a remnant of the worm. I've got a Comcast cable modem and a Linksys router installed, and I'm using another computer through them to write this (so things are fine there).

First IE7 quit connecting to the internet. However, Firefox, Netscape, and Outlook Express WERE working fine---until I went online and a site suggested that I remove the winsock and that would fix the problem. Now it won't connect to anything, even though I reinstalled the default winsock with the XP network wizard. However, it DOES see my router. It is sending and receiving packets just fine AND when I remove the ethernet cable from my router, I get an error message on the screen.

Anybody have any help for me?

Hello frankd,
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- Have you tried XP's network repair option?
Try this to test your internet connectivity:
Press the windows logo key and + R together. Enter cmd in the Run box, hit enter. Type ping google.com into the prompt and hit enter. Then paste the result and paste it back to us.

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Don't you mean the windows key and the R key together?

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Debian SID

Yes, thanks for spotting that

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Ash
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Thanks for your response, Ash. Yes, of course I will give whatever help I can about anything I know.

Yes, I have tried to run the network repair option, but I get the error message "Windows could not finish repairing the problem because the following action cannot be completed-clearing the DNS cache
For assistance contact the person who manages your network (which of course is me)

When I hit the windows and + key nothing happened, but I went to run, typed in CMD.exe. Then I typed ping google.com. I received the answer "ping request could not find host google.com. Please check the name and try again.

Frank

Does the internet work without the router?

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Debian SID

No, it doesn't. I tried to ping google.com and received the same response.

Did you try running cmd and to flush the cache manually (ipconfig /flushdns)

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Debian SID

Yes, and I get the message "Could not flush the DNS Resolver Cache: Function failed during execution."

I also tried to display the dns, and it would not allow me to do that either.

Ok try the following:
1. Open a CMD.EXE window.

2. Type the following command and press Enter:

REG ADD HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dnscache /V Start /T REG_DWORD /F /D 2

3. Shutdown and restart Windows XP.

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Debian SID

Sorry, but that didn't fix it.

I typed it in as you wrote it
(REG ADD HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dnscache /V Start /T REG_DWORD /F /D 2) but I got the message that the command was too long. I removed the indicated spaces and entered REG ADD HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dnscache/VStart/TREG_DWORD/F/D2 and received the message that it had been done.

Did removing the spaces change the meaning?

It still won't connect, ping google, or flush the dns.

Did you do a repair install on Windows?

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Debian SID

No, is it coming down to that??

Try checking your proxy settings - and make sure there is no proxy set:
How to configure Internet Explorer to use a proxy server

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Ash
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No, No proxys were set. It's set to automatic settings.

I've been experimenting with this computer (#2, the one that works) and seeing what differences show up compared to #1. The most obvious is that when you hit the network repair function or go to ipconfig/flushdns, computer #1 gets the error message that it can't flush the dns cache. Is this something to worry about?