Internet connection problem

I was off the internet for a few days.  A virus or malware got in and changed my local area connection's TCP/IP properties to use a named IP address and DSN server addresses.  These addresses went to nowhere as they weren't valid addresses.  Strangely, I could only access one internet address, one of a local newspaper.  Even then that web page came up in basic HTML.   If I used the actual IP physical address to access a web page it would come up in my browser.

The virus or malware locked the properties fields so I couldn't change it back to use the fields: "Obtain IP address automatically" and "Obtain DSN server address automatically".

Booting up my computer  in "Safe Mode with networking" allowed the browser to find the web pages correctly.  I then downloaded a Winsock XP fix program that fixed the problem.

WinSock is a free WinSock/TCP repair app that you can use when your web connection is corrupted due to removed or invalid registry entries.

This is how it works: when you remove adware components or make a mistake when uninstalling some firewall applications or other type of programs, WinSock detects the problem and attempts to fix it. This is so much better than having to go through the trouble of reinstalling the whole operating system, just because the Internet connection is down.

If you are in any way afraid to make changes in the Windows registry files, then WinSock has the option of backing them up, using the dedicated button called ReG-Backup (an option which is highly recommended).

Basically, WinSock detects the current operating system you are running on, releases the IP address and gets you "offline," resets the TCP through Netsh.exe (only available for Windows XP), then removes the current registry TCP and WinSock values. After this, it imports new registry values that function properly, backups the current Hosts file and replaces it with a standard one. The final step is to reboot the computer.

Running my AVG anti-virus and malwarebytes programs never found a virus or malware so I am not sure how things got screwed up.  But I am back up working after a few days of problem solving.

Between my computer problem and another cattle jailbreak it has been another crazy few days.  No wonder I don't seem to get anything done around here.