Member Avatar for hanania123

Hi,

I have a wireless network at my house - Level One router with 2 computers surfing without having any problem.
I just got a new laptop from work but I can't make it surf any web page. It recognizes my network and gets an IP address which is very similar to the addresses of the other two computers in the network, but when I open IE it keeps saying: "internet explorer could not open the search page".
I tried pinging some websites and it seems ok (got reply). Any ideas?

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by hollystyles

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This looks like a proxy-related problem, as already suggested. Getting a valid IP and successful pings while the browser fails is typical when a browser is configured to use an HTTP proxy that isn’t reachable from home. Ping uses ICMP (not HTTP), so it can succeed even when HTTP/HTTPS connections are being redirected to a non‑reachable proxy (ping (Windows)).

Checks that help isolate the cause without changing company policy: confirm whether the browser’s proxy settings are editable (greyed out often means Group Policy), and inspect the system-level proxy with netsh winhttp show proxy to see whether a WinHTTP proxy or auto-config script (PAC/WPAD) is in use. If a PAC/WPAD URL is configured, the browser will try to fetch instructions that only exist on the corporate network, so browsing will fail offsite even though IP and DNS work (netsh winhttp).

For reading work mail remotely, there are several supported approaches depending on what IT offers: Outlook on the web (OWA), Outlook Anywhere (RPC over HTTP), Exchange ActiveSync, IMAP/POP (if enabled), or a corporate VPN. If OWA or Outlook Anywhere is published you can use those; otherwise a VPN is usually required to reach the internal Exchange server. Ask IT which remote-access method they support and whether extra authentication (2FA) is needed (Outlook on the web, ).

Practical note: if the laptop is company-managed, don’t permanently disable or remove proxy settings yourself—contact IT. For a quick, non-invasive test of direct HTTP access you can run a portable browser from USB (for example, Firefox Portable) to see whether browsing works without touching system policies.

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Member Avatar for hollystyles

IE on your work laptop is almost certainly configured to use a Proxy server for surfing the internet.

In Tools menu -> internet options.....

Sheesh download firefox on another pc, copy installer to a USB stick or copy acroos your network (that bits working) install it and forget IE.

But if you MUST stick with IE, carrying on form where I left off on the Connections tab, click the LAN Settings button. Uncheck the "Use a proxy server....blah"

Don't forget to put it back when you get back to work.

I found Firefox just deals with it at home and work for my laptop so I stuck with it and havn't looked back.

Member Avatar for hanania123

It seems like it solved the problem, but I couldn't understand exactly what you meant:
Should I use only FF? Should I use both IE and FF with the "use proxy server" checked in IE and unchecked in FF?

And another question - I can't read e-mails from work. And idea about how to config my mailbox (microsoft exchange) to receive e-mails from home?

10x

Member Avatar for hollystyles

Should I use only FF

I found that suited me best and even though I had my works proxy server set in options, FF seemed to be able to fall back to direct connection when I was at home by itself, so I found that easier. Plus FF has so many more add-ins and stuff that make surfing a pleasure. There's even a FireFox extension that allows you to use IE renderig engine inside an FF tab, so you can still browse IE only sites using FF.

To read emails on your exchange server at work you need a VPN connection to your office. The exchange server will most likely be inside your works private network not on the internet. Unless your I.T. have published the web outlook front end. There could be many different set-ups I couldn't possibly guess how your company is set-up, sorry.

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