My PC has lost internet acces - IP address is now blank I think I have something that's taking over the PC - here is a chronlogy of what happened:
My son downloaded a Div X player& then removed it when he couldn't get it to work. It looks like this player tried to replace the Windows
Media player. I found out the next day, Saturday when he complained that the PC had an error message starting.
Now I an not sure if he could have visted some other places on the internet where he coud have picked up something after he deleted DivX.
I used Roxio to go back as far a I could, but could not get back to before the download. Then ran Norton antivirus scan whic did not find anything. Later that day it wouldn't play any tunes. Looked like the PC didn't have any audio devices. I did the online chat with HP & they told me how to uninstall & re-install the audio device. It didn't help.
Meanwhile the boot time for the PC is increaseing - so I suspect a bigger problem i.e. Norton would say I have a problem, windows updates are turned off, so I'd turn them on & later Norton would come back with the same message, windows updates are turned off.
By Sunday the audio wasn't working, boot was taking about 20 minutes & then the darn thing would not connect to the internet.
We have roadrunner - with a wireless router for my wife's PC. My wife complained that her response speed was terrible.
Called roadrunner & they couldn't fugure anything out.
When I checked the internet connections on the PC, the IP address DNS etc had disappeared. When I turned off the PC, my wife's connection went back to normal. I suspect there is something on the PC that is connecting to the the internet & doing something while it shuts down all other PC functions.
Does anyone have any suggestions on how to restore my internet access & then clean the PC? Or can I fix the windows & then restore the internet connection, then clean up the PC?

Yes, it probably has something to do with divx. An older version of the program i believe caused this problem (i thought they fixed it with all new version.) Well anyways, i had the same problem about a year ago, but a quick uninstall of the problem fixed my problem and i just installed the program again with the newer version and I've never had a problem since.

If you are using windows xp, you can use the built in restore, and it will probably have a date further back than roxios. If it doesn't post back here, and we will get you back up in no time

I managed to run spybot, Bitdefender, Panda & ewido in Safe Mode. These seemed to clean up some bad stuff. Then I tried the restore in Safe Mode & got a message to re-boot - it was too late so I left it. Is there some other way I should try the restore?

You can do a system restore in normal mode. It isn't necessary to be in safe mode to do it. Also, it is good that you ran those programs, however, that seems like a different issue. After you preform the system restore, go ahead and go to the spyware and other nasties forum here in daniweb, read how to download hijack this and how to scan for a highjack this log, and the nice guys over there will help you make sure your computer is completly clean of any bad stuff. Infact, this maybe what your problem was all along (it kind of seems like you were a little infected, (which could cause these problems)). Hope this helps

OK Thanks for your help - I really appreciate it.