Member Avatar for theavenger

Hi,

Recently my computer got a virus which kept bringing up a window saying that a program had stopped responding and so I scanned my laptop with Malwerebytes and it managed to find the infected files and get rid of them. Now, before this, my laptop experienced a crash, which I presume was caused by the virus. When the virus was gone I noticed 2 things were wrong.

Firstly, I previously had User Account Control turned off however, when I restarted my computer it was back on. I'm not sure whether this was because of the crash, or something else.

Secondly I found out the the Itunes store couldn't connect even though Firefox was working fine. So I tried out Internet Explorer and it can't display any webpages. When I diagnose the problem, it says (for the site "google")

"www.google.co.uk" is not set up to establish a connection on port "World Wide Web service (HTTP)" with this computer.

Then it tells me to

Verify the current proxy server configuration

And when doing this I realise every thing seems to be set up as it should be, although I'm not 100% sure. I really don't understand what's going on, especially as firefox is working with no problem.

Thanks in advance!

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by aloksharma7000

Dani AI

Generated

Short summary and context: this thread shows a common pattern after malware removal — a leftover proxy or low-level network change can break Internet Explorer while Firefox continues to work (Firefox can use its own proxy settings). As noted, clearing the proxy restored browsing for . UAC being re-enabled after a crash is a common side effect of system repairs or updates and is not, by itself, proof that everything is clean.

Common follow-ups when clearing the proxy does not restore IE (reported by ): run an elevated command prompt for the first three items, then reboot where noted.

  • Reset the system-level WinHTTP proxy:

    netsh winhttp reset proxy

  • Reset the Winsock catalog (reboot afterwards):

    netsh winsock reset

  • Repair core Windows files:

    sfc /scannow

  • Inspect the hosts file (C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts) for unexpected redirects and remove unfamiliar entries.

  • Disable or temporarily uninstall third-party firewall/AV or suspicious IE add-ons; some security suites inject proxies or block IE but not other browsers.

  • As suggested, use Internet Explorer's Reset if settings still look corrupted.

Additional notes: using another browser like suggested is a reasonable short-term workaround, but it does not remove root causes. After making repairs, re-scan with updated anti-malware tools and consider an offline scan if network hooks persist. For deeper troubleshooting, capture the outputs of the netsh commands, the SFC log, and any relevant Event Viewer entries to identify leftover network hooks or corrupted components.

Recommended Answers

All 5 Replies

Member Avatar for kristain

Tools Menu -> Internet Options -> Connections Tab ->Lan Settings > uncheck "use a proxy server" or reconfigure the Proxy server again in case you have set it previously.

Member Avatar for theavenger

Oh right, it was that easy, although I thought I already tried that. It's working now, so thanks a lot!

Member Avatar for jsnh

same problem here did that didn't work for me

Member Avatar for cc11rocks

use google chrome...:-)

Member Avatar for aloksharma7000

Go to Internet Option-> Advanced tab-> Click on reset

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