Vista Internet Issue

[nipdog001]

I just set up a user on a new e-machine(her choice) and walked through the install, everything was working fine. Downloaded and installed free ZA and AVG went to a few websites, everything was working fine. By the time I got home she was calling saying she was not able to access any websites now. Just to check I had her shut down ZA, still no luck. She had all lights on modem, just to check I had her unplug modem for 2 min then plug back in still nothing, even the classic Microsoft reboot still nothing. Does Vista have some known bug ?, I figured they had some security feature built in that will auto block access to Internet after so much time of inactivity. Any suggestions that I can walk the user through IF not I will be spending another night working on her issues, thanks in advance

[Paul Komski]

Try uninstalling ZA and just turn on the Windows Firewall.

Presumably the dialup (is it a dialup modem?) is working so, if so, can she ping any websites. If its a broadband "modem" then what is the output of ipconfig /all from a command prompt. Can she also ping 127.0.0.1 ?

[nipdog001]

I have not ran any ping commands yet, since I had just gotten home from being at her house for 2 hours, I did not want to go back last night and she is not very computer savay and would of took longer to explain to her how to ping and all that, i was hoping that there was an easy setting on Vista that would fix it before I went back over, I will be over there tonight and run a ipconfig and see what is up, thanks for the reply

[Paul Komski]

One minor thought. If using IE make sure it is not set as working offline. ZA would be high on my own agenda as the source of the problem. Is this DUN or BB?

[nipdog001]

it is BB, Also how was I able to go out to gmail, aol and google for 10-15 mintues and not have an issue then all of a sudden it not work. Woudn't just turning off ZA produce the same result if it was the issue ?

[Paul Komski]

how was I able to go out to gmail, aol and google for 10-15 mintues and not have an issue then all of a sudden it not workWho knows - PCs often do "funny things". Maybe a reboot changed something. Maybe the user clicked an incorrect prompt in ZA. It's just from experience that if there are inexplicable losses of network connectivity a Firewall setting is often at the heart of it and though disabling the Firewall should stop it from blocking sometimes you need to actually uninstall it to be quite sure.

It can also sometimes help with troubleshooting to install a second browser such as Firefox or Opera and see what happens. ZA would not have been pre-configured for them and so you could be sure that ZA would allow them when prompted and there was no specific IE setting involved.

[nipdog001]

thanks for your answer that will help my torubleshooting next time, I did go back over her houe last night and she wanted me to move her tower form ground to table. After I check light on back of NIC and all connections of course computer was working fine. So crisis averted and gave me some time to "educate" her on thing to look for next time., thanks again