client browsing prob. after sp2 install on host

I really am hoping someone here can help because the help desk at Microsoft is useless beyond imagining and I have been dealing with this problem for 2 weeks now! We have a network of 3 computers, all were working fine. Host running XP home (dial up internet connection), both clients running XP Pro. One client had sp2 upgrade couple of months ago with no problem.

We installed sp2 on the host computer and suddenly the 2nd client (comp without sp2 upgrade) could no longer browse the internet. In a bizzare twist, we can go to www.google.com and search and access the news feature (getting current results, not cached pages) but any attempt to click on a hyperlink results in the dreaded "Page cannot be displayed" showing up. I cannot access any other web site (msn.com, microsoft.com, eBay.com etc.) without the Page cannot be displayed. The 1st client can browse just fine as can the host.

I can access files across all three computers, we installed sp2 on the 2nd computer, we upgraded the host to XP Pro. I have run anti virus (norton) and spyware (spybot) on the computer, they did not turn up anything other than a data miner which I removed. I have compared the lan settings between the 1st and 2nd clients to make sure nothing is different other than the ISP for each computer. I am at wits end. I have used Winsock xp fix and Lsp fix with no joy. I have flushed things and reset things and I am going to go crazy very soon. Since the computer is obviously connected to the internet through the lan (it can access google and yahoo current pages) this should be a straighforward issue, but for the life of me I cannot figure it out. Thank for any help you can provide.

 

Have you disabled the XP firewall on each PC? You can find this in the properties of the NIC under "Network Connections" in the Control Panel.

Can you ping microsoft.com from a command prompt?
Have you set EVERYTHING in your browser to defaults, and assured that there are no "restricted" sites?
Have you tried a different browser?
Try using 4.2.2.2 for your primary DNS, and 4.2.2.3 for your alternate DNS. This is found in the TCP/IP properties for the properties of the NIC.

 

Thanks for your response. Yes, I have disabled all firewalls. I cannot ping microsoft from a command prompt though I can ping Google and Yahoo successfully as well as loop back, and all other computers on the network. I have not reset everything on both the host and the problem client to browser defaults (I have done that with the prob. client, not the host), I will try this first thing tomorrow. I have not tried another browser yet. I tried to load Netscape, but it would not let me (thanks Bill!), so I am going to download firefox (?) and try that tomorrow also. I will post back with my results. Thanks

 

If you're still having troubles, I will need to know what response (request timed out, unknown host, etc. etc.) you get when you attempt to ping microsoft. It can point to DNS issues, gateway issues, etc. etc.

Also, try this from a command prompt: "ipconfig /flushdns". Then try to ping microsoft.

Check your hosts file. It should only have one line that doens't begin with a #, which is "127.0.0.1 localhost". If it has any more, remove them. Your hosts file can be found in C:\%SYSTEM ROOT%\system32\drivers\etc. System Root being where Windows is installed. You can open the file with notepad.

 

What if the hosts file did not have any entries that did not begin with a # sign? I had a hard time even finding the file.

 

You should ALWAYS have localhost in your hosts file.

I've attached a host file that you should be able to use. Open the file, copy all of the data, and paste it into your current hosts file (overwriting what is already in there).