IE7 does not work on brand-new Toshiba w/Vista x86

On a brand-new Toshiba Satellite L300 with Vista Home Premium x86 installed, I removed McAfee and Google Desktop/Earth/IE Toolbar (via appwiz.cpl) and I'm experiencing the following: The only pages where I can connect to in IE7 and are displayed are www.google.* (.com, .co.uk, .gr etc) and the official toshiba ones (.toshiba.com, .toshiba-europe.com etc). I've disabled the Windows Firewall, I've run IE7 in non-Protected Mode, but to no avail. The thing won't even connect to .microsoft.com or any other site! It only displays a "Waiting for..." message and that's it.

Connection is via a Wireless Router (operating in Access-Point mode) to a Router/Modem that provides DNS and is set as the Gateway; the IP is manually set on the Toshiba, and the local network/workgroup functions perfectly (it sees and is seen by all others in the LAN, I can get into its Public folder etc). The Toshiba can also download stuff from the toshiba sites only, and as I said it cannot navigate to anything except google and toshiba. I don't know if it would connect/display websites normally before I removed McAfee et al, because it was the first thing I did. The second was to run IE7, and this is what I'm facing. As always, your help is greatly appreciated.

 

What exactly is the full error message?

Edit: It might be a security thing. Go to Tools-->Internet Options; click the "Security" tab, select each zone, Internet, Local, Trusted etc. and press the "Default level" button. While you're in there make sure no sites are being blocked.

 

I don't actually get any error message; it's just an endless "waiting for e.g. www.notebookreview.com..." on the bottom-left corner. It eventually ends up (after some eons, of course) to: "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage". Running the Windows Network Diagnostics in this case brings a message that: "The host may be down."

 

Did u try my suggestion in the Edit above? If that doesn't work, try resetting IE7. Tools--> Internet Options--> Advanced. At the bottom reset!

 

No, sorry, I hadn't seen it when I was replying. I'm gonna try this right now. In the meatime I tried booting in Safe Mode with Networking, and this behavior persisted.

 

OK, I reset IE7 and the issue still persists. Actually, as soon as IE7 restarted, the .runonce page attempted to appear, but even that (MS-hosted) wasn't able to! IE7 would immediately then go to the Google homepage, and wouldn't even navigate back! It even refuses to respond to Find More Providers, since those are MS-hosted pages, too. I re-installed the Google Toolbar in case it was its removal the one that caused all this, but still no cigar.

I'm oh-so tempted (1) to throw the Toshiba out of the window, (2) to make a clean Vista installation just using the Toshiba product key, or, (3) even better, to install XP and have a working computer (I would have had one, actually, hours ago).

 

Since I had Portable FF2 in my usb-stick, I ran it and the issue is reproduced even with another browser. So, is it a settings issue? Is it Vista in general (and they're wondering why people won't switch over...)? Or is it McAfee screwing up the system (I've heard lotsa horror stories...)?

 

If u do a search in google do u get results?

 

Try to run the Network Setup Wizard again, a lot of times this simple procedure will solve the problem.

Control Panel -> Network and Internet -> Internet Options -> Connections

 

Yes, I do get results, but it's futile attempting to visit the actuals sites; even the cached results won't show.

I did that too, numerous times, but to no avail.

Right now I'm finishing an in-place upgrade installation (since I cannot repair IE7 any other way after its Reset didn't help) and I'll let you know of the results.

 

It seems like a program might have edited the hosts file.

1. In Folder Options, unhidden the hidden and system files.

2. Browse to the folder: Windows\System32\drivers\etc

3. Inside you will see a file called hosts with no extension, open it with Notepad.

4. Can you tell me what is after those lines that start with a # sign?

 

127.0.0.1 localhost
::1 localhost


PS The issue is still there — I'm stumped.