What's going on with IE on my notebook?

[IgoByte]

I'm having some weird problems... I can't load anything in IE as of a couple of days ago. I'm using the My Computer window to surf the web and that works fine, but IE itself doesn't (at least not when launched from an icon). The My Computer window converts to an IE window once a page loads, so this is all pretty strange to me. Even so, if I click to reply to a PM here, for instance, the new page that pops up can't be displayed.
I managed to accept a download of the Lycos search thingie, which I immediately uninstalled, but that seems to have triggered the problem.
Any suggestions as to what I should do to fix this?

 

[MrChad]

1. Run Adaware and/or Spybot.
2. Check your HOSTS file (in C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc).

 

[sswingle]

Originally posted by: MrChad
1. Run Adaware and/or Spybot.
2. Check your HOSTS file (in C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc).

Do this, and also disable third party browswer extensions.

 

[IgoByte]

Thanks, guys. I'll give it a try, though I've already run SB S&D...

 

[deadseasquirrel]

Originally posted by: IgoByte
Thanks, guys. I'll give it a try, though I've already run SB S&D...

that coulda been the problem. spybot deletes spyware manually. and, some programs dont appreciate that too much. they jimmy themselves into the Winsock2 LSP. so when they're deleted, IE wont work. try mozilla or netscape and i bet it will work.

you can get yer IE back by going back into spybot and undoing the last changes. however, that will put the spyware back on there. then you can google for the spyware and find out how to properly delete them (spybot doesnt always do a good job).

see threads here, here, and here.

You might be able to simply download that LSP fix tool and repair your LSP and have all be good, without Undoing the changes in Spybot.