problem accessing internet

i bought a used computer from a business auction,and after hooking it up to my internet conection and clicking on the internet explorer icon,it always gives me this error: "windows cannot access the specified device ,path, or file.you may not have the appropriate permissions to access the file".
a friend of mine bought one of the same computers from the auction when i did and had the same problem,but someone he knows fixed it by doing something in the control panel i think.(he cant remember exactly where it was that they went into to fix it).hopefully someone here will know how to do it.thanks for any help you can give me!

 

With so little info, best guesses are about all that can be offered:

Check TCP/IP Properties in the Network Connection for the LAN card, and see if the business had IP, subnet and DNS info hard-coded in. If so, change the settings to "obtain automatically" and see if it then works.

Another possibility is that some malware-- or, more precisely, incomplete malware removal-- has left Windows in need of an LSP fix.

Try the first one, and see if that's what it is.

 

thanks for the reply.the tcp/ip thing didnt work and and im sure its not a malware issue.im pretty sure its just some setting that was used to keep employees off the internet,but like i said , a freind got one of these pc's also and was able to get around it easily,he just cant remember where they went to fix it.