I had the same problems as most of these posts with this same problem. I tried most of the suggestions to no avail. I found out that if you disable the "DNS Client" service, all works well.

Only use this "cure" at home. At the office, check with your IT person to CYA.

Go to: Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Services and then highlight the DNS Client and right click and then choose Properties/Startup Type and choose Disable and then close back to the Desktop. Re-Boot and the computer will start up without the svchost.exe /network services active.

Just a note: I would suggest using a third party "Hosts" (free) program/file such as Hostsman, HostsXpert for better protection. Both of these programs require that the DNS Client be disabled.

Hope this works for you...