Having a strange problem. Just got my first windows Vista PC. IE worked initially, I used it to download Firefox which is my preferred browser. But now firefox alone can access the internet. The Dial-up Connection box is always up and I can never get it to connect. IE downs't work, Outlook doesn't work, Steam doesn't work etc. Any ideas?

Do you get the Dial-up Connection box when you launch Firefox?

No, it comes up at startup and won't go away. Cancel just makes it reappear and connect fails.

Once you downloaded firefox, you must also download the IE plugin for firefox - violla - both will work

oops - sorry - it reply too soon. You say the dial up box comes up. You are on dialup? I had a customer with a similar complaint. They were not on dial up, but a dsl broadband connection. I disabled the dialup adapter and they were able to connect to the internet They also used firefox as their preferred browser, however, needed IE for some sites they visited (they said). The plug-in for IE will allow you to use either browser.

Sorry, I should have added that I'm using DSL to connect to the internet, the dial-up connection box only offers me the option of connecting to broadband, but it still can't connect. I actually do connect through a wireless router, that may have something to do with the problem. I've just installed the IE tab addon for firefox but I can't seem to get it working and I can't find any useful online documentation. Finally, I don't have any dial-up adapter in my computer, and nothing of the sort shows up in device manager, so there's nothing I can disable. Any other ideas?

Try this:

Go to Control Panel, Internet Options, click on the Connections tab; select 'Never dial a connection' and click Apply; then click the LAN Settings button and uncheck all the boxes, OK and Apply .

Try IE again. If it still doesn't work, go back to the LAN Settings and try it with 'Automatically detect settings' checked and Applied.

Hmmm, your first suggestion worked, IE now works but the dial-up connection box still appears. At leat everything is working apart from that.

I have the same problem. I'm currently running OS Windows Vista. Firefox seems to work fine, but IE or my AIM doesn't seem to be working. This goes for all places and ways I use the internet: Wireless at home, Connected at home VIA DSL, in my dorm room (connected through Ethernet), and as well as wireless in my school. This all happened recently (the past 2 days) ... The only thing I recall is downloading the latest version of AIM (6.5) and Windows Update.

I tried all the recommended steps above, nothing seems to work ...

Did you upgrade Vista from XP? If you did, some of the software drivers (for instance some HP "hotbutton" drivers) will not work correctly with Vista. Is that version of AIM compatible with Vista?