Hi,

Is there a kind sole out there who will help this pc virgin get his internet explorer working.
Support from Dell next to useless.

Thanks in anticipation

Need to know what the problem is first.

Also IE version, 5.0, 6.0, and OS, Win 98, XP, and does XP have SP2.

ok thanks.

Basically I have purchased a Dell PC with XP home edition but cannot get any updates because my internet browser will not connect (have checked the firewall & it has full access). I can connect to the internet ok via AOL so I'm sure it's just a case of someone talking me configuring my broadband connection properly.

I am still a bit confused; you Can or Cannot access the internet and surf the web normally using AOL? If you Can, your broadband connection is not the issue because AOL uses it just like Internet Explorer does.

If the answer to the above is Can, then Internet Explorer is corrupted. It should work automatically right from the first click.

Please post any error messages that you get when trying to load IE;

>You might want to review THIS webiste for help;

>You did not answer xpgeek's question as to what version of IE you are using; if not six, then upgrade to IE6 from HEREand that may solve the problem. If you are running 6, then install the service packs available for 6.

Thanks for the info.

In answer to your questions:

Yes I can surf the web via AOL
Yes I have IE version 6
There is no error message as such, the IE window opens and registers 'web site found.waiting for reply' but then just hangs there.

I've followed the procedures from your link to Microsoft, also loaded and ran winsockxpfix, however I'm still unable to connect to the internet via IE.

Any other suggestions/help?

Well, this may be a longshot, but I trust AOL as far as I can spit.

It seems very unusual that you can cruise the waves all day long in AOL, but IE freezes. There can't be anything wrong with your ISP connection, so that leaves only AOL holding the deep, dark bag of suspicion.

Just a thought... start IE6 and go to <Internet Options/connections> to see if there is some unusual setting... If AOL browser can connect, only some setting on IE6 will be wrong to impeach it to browse... assuming that IE6 is not corrupted... maybe reinstalling it will resolve the problem.

Chris