Member Avatar for Wurlitzer28

Vista home 64 bit, Verizon FiOS, wireless to Verizon router.

This is a friend that I try to help occasionally and 2 days ago all his browsers stopped functioning.

They will load but will not go to any website and you just get the rotating icon.

However, his e-mail, via Outlook still works and if he clicks on a URL from one of the e-mails it will launch Chrome and connect to that site.

Also, Spotify works for him.

I tried to get him to go to Control Panel/Network and Sharing Center but when that page opens up, he once again gets the rotation cursor icon and he cannot do anything but close that page.

I had been using TeamViewer to help him and that has worked great for over a year but now when he launches it, he gets the UAC prompt, he clicks on continue but TeamViewer never launches. It shows as Starting in Task Manager but it never starts.

I have tried numerous CMD and ip related reset type commands shown on other web sites but no change.

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by dloj333

Dani AI

Generated

— the pattern (browsers stall but Outlook links and Spotify work; Network and Sharing Center hangs; TeamViewer shows “Starting” then never runs) points away from a simple ISP outage and toward a local Windows/network-stack, proxy, firewall/AV, or WMI/Service problem rather than a hardware fault.

Practical, prioritized checks (do them in order):

  • Verify system proxy: Control Panel → Internet Options → Connections → LAN settings — ensure “Use a proxy server” is unchecked and “Automatically detect settings” is on. From an elevated CMD run:

    netsh winhttp show proxy

  • Quick connectivity/DNS tests: from elevated CMD try:

    nslookup www.google.com
ping 8.8.8.8
tracert www.google.com

    These separate DNS, routing, and basic IP connectivity.

  • Reset networking stack (run elevated CMD, then reboot):

    netsh winsock reset
netsh int ip reset resetlog.txt
ipconfig /flushdns
ipconfig /release
ipconfig /renew

  • If Network and Sharing Center or MMC consoles hang, check key services (Services.msc): Network List Service, Network Location Awareness, RPC, WMI. Repair WMI if needed (create a restore point first) with:

    winmgmt /verifyrepository
winmgmt /salvagerepository

  • Check hosts file (C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts) for rogue redirects, temporarily disable firewall/AV to rule out blocking, and run SFC to repair system files:

    sfc /scannow

For TeamViewer: uninstall/reinstall the latest compatible build and run the installer as Administrator. Run Event Viewer to capture errors when TeamViewer or the Network panel hangs.

Note on ’s upgrade suggestion: moving from Vista to Windows 10 is a major, non‑trivial step (clean install in most cases) and won’t help isolate this immediate networking issue. Follow the diagnostic steps above first; they target the most likely causes and are reversible.

Member Avatar for dloj333

You might want to upgrade to Win 10 Technical Preview. I believe you can from Vista. Go to this site and you can start.

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