> I had a similar problem. Maybe with my experiences you can make
> sense of this.
>
> First I have a slow dialup so all of my troubleshooting steps took
> loads of time and little sleep. I'm talking weeks of like 3 hours
> sleep a night.
>
> My problem started with installing AOL's OpenRide. I had problems
> which caused the AOL System Information to crash when I clicked it.
> At Aol's instructions I uninstalled OpenRide and tried AOL 9.0SE. It
> wouldn't connect. I got a server or DNS error. This went on for
> weeks and many hours with the AOL Techs going over the same things
> again and again.
>
> I did all the usuals like SFC /Sannow, XP Repair, chkdsk /f, defrag,
> eic.
>
> I finally installed System Mechanic Professional 6 and ran it's tests
> which didn't find anything significant; although I could now connect
> and I now had browser access. It seemed to have something to do with
> the Firewall that came with System Mechanic. I uninstalled the
> firewall and could no longer browse. I reinstalled the firewall and
> could browse again.
>
> There is another problem associated with all this. The computer
> seems to lock up for 5 minutes or so every time I connect to the
> internet although I can use AOL's email during that time. Nothing
> else responds though. I.E. I can click on task manager and it won't
> show up for about 5 minutes the it, and other things I may have
> clicked on, snap up on the screen. All during this time I can be
> reading AOL email.
>
> Next chapter. I installed Windows "critical update" IE7 today. Now
> I can't get any pictures in my AOL email or access any weblinks
> listed in my email.
>
> I'm really getting tired of this.
>
> Ken
> "KMO" yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:Xns9868473C3BEC7Kmoscodslectremecom@207.115.17.102...

>> First off I know I know..... AOL hell...... but that doesn't correct
>> my problem. I posted this to their help boards and thought I would
>> come here as well. So I copied what I posted and I hope someone
>> seens something here for me. And thank you in advance............
>>
>>
>> I am not kidding, as you know I have had this beef in the last few
>> days that my Internet Explorer will not work half the time....... I
>> just nailed it.
>>
>>
>>
>> Okay background. I have win xp sp2. I installed and removed
>> openride.....when asked about shared files I told the damn thing to
>> not remove them, to keep them..... since I have been having problems
>> and was first to think that is was aol SE. I have version IE
>> 6.0.2900.2180 sp2. This is what I did this morning. Oh and I
>> have a DSL broadband connection.... do not access aol with any modem
>> and am free, (I don't relate this problem to being free)........ I
>> went to my mail for my broadband account and while reading that
>> tried loading up firefox which has a feature to use a program that
>> makes certain pages which are restricted to Mircrosoft to work.
>> It's called an IE TAb add on..... I could not access my msn
>> board........ So I clicked on a regular link, yep my firefox
>> browser works just fine, can't get to the msn board..... so I loaded
>> up OPENRIDE........ Yep...... it went to my msn page...... It went
>> to windows update page........ so I clicked on my icon that loads up
>> Internet explorer and goes right to the Microsoft update page.
>> NOPE........ try another link in IE....... nope...... the browser
>> itself is dead in the water (which kills my ie tab ad on since it's
>> based on that)........nothing works on IE, I cannot even load up
>> internet options from the ie browser, have to get there via control
>> panel.......... So here is where I start my experiment.... IE
>> doesn't work....... openride does....... okay so I close that puppy
>> down.
>>
>>
>>
>> I sign onto aol, still have IE sitting here dead.......... once
>> signed on to aol, I click the reload button...... well guess what,
>> IE now works, microsoft update pages starts to load...... I do the
>> same with the page in my firefox browser...... wow everything is
>> working if you are signed on to aol. So I sign off of aol..........
>> hit the reload button...... everything is dead once again, both
>> browsers.......... sign on to aol........ click reload, there is
>> it........ I did this five times, so there is no doubt in my mind
>> that aol has somehow changed something in my internet explorer
>> settings or something that I cannot access anything unless I have
>> aol loaded up. Now who would like to explain/help, have a clue,
>> figure this one out......... Can I get and install IE over what I
>> have ( I do not want IE 7 at this time)....... I do not to wipe
>> my system clean and start from fresh, I just did this months ago and
>> won't go there at this time, although pissed off enough so who
>> knows..... There has to be some setting somewhere that IE thinks I
>> am not signed onto the net somehow......... Please someone have an
>> answer...... and odd that open ride works.....without being on
>> aol...... of course, it's aol's......... so there is my delima....
>> hope someone knows something..... This is ridiculous..... I also
>> see that of late the new format is not loading up, try again later
>> and it's not me, it's all over the place.
>>
>>
>>
>> I also wanted to take this a little further...... I tried the above
>> using aol 9.0 SE...... My IE will not work. It's dead in the water
>> as well.... I loaded up my aol 80,,,,, my ie will work if I am
>> signed on into that one....... so 8.0 and 9.0 optomized seem to be
>> my little miracle workers although having to depend upon being
>> signed on to them to have internet explorer work is total BS..
>>
>>
>>
>> Then I started to noticed something else and so wrote it down. When
>> it won't load up and I get an error I get this message
>> Says cannot find server or dns error. Also when I cannot connect
>> in the lower bottom of the browser and I don't know for the life of
>> me what it's called, but it tells you what page you are on or where
>> you want to go, I see this........ Connecting to site
>> 220.80.118.42............ looks like an ftp thing to me.............
>> I get that when I cannot get ie to work, or through my broadband
>> without aol loaded up......... When I am signed on to aol and click
>> the same thing (this is microsofts windows update page by the way)
>> I get this instead Opening page at Http://www. blah blah
>> whatever the page is, goes to fast and then it gets there and says
>> DONE..............
>>
>>
>>
>> So I am hoping someone sees something here....that is all the info I
>> can provide..... there has to be a fix somewhere..... I don't want
>> to go the repair IE route, to involved, to do that may as well wipe
>> this computer clean and start fresh......... makes me wonder what
>> would happen if I did indeed install IE 7 but right now I don't need
>> more problems than I already have....
>>
>>
>>
>> Maybe I will have to take this to the microsoft newsgroups and see if
>> they have an answer........ guess I should copy this so I don't need
>> to type the whole thing out again if I do go there.
>>
>> --
>> ~Karen~