I'm stunned, but which one is it?

hi guys, I've got a HJT over in the other forum which may now be irrelevant as i no longer think it is malware but the source is very very interesting so i am looking here for some thoughts. Basically nothing in my house, none of my 3 pc will connect to any site that has anything to do with microsoft. Even more disturbing, my PSP browser will not connect to Microsoft. so that leads me to beleive it must be the router or my ISP. My nice neighbour let me connect to his wireless router and hey presto, hello www.microsoft.com. So, the big question, is it my router or is the problem with the ISP. your thoughts are greatly appreciated. Dave

Does your Internet Access and Router allow you to browse the internet in general (except the Microsoft address). If it does, then continue with your HJT fix, as you may have a highjack going on. If it doesn't and everything works great on with your machine plugged into your neighbors internet access, then Reinstall your Router Configuration. Best Regards

Thanks for the reply. I had actually decided to plough on with a router reset and since then access to all things microsoft has returned - primarily it was windowsupdate and my MSDN subscription I needed the most, but even news article links which had a reference to Microsoft were being ignored! I thought I had the router fairly secure - WEP, hidded ssi and specific MAC address access only - but i guess not as the problem appears to have gone away now that it has been reset to factory default and then security re-applied. Do you think I should press on with the hjt anyway or would that be overkill as things appear to working normally? Dave

Glad to hear that things are running well now.

"disclaimer": I am not a qualified nor authorized HJT Advisor.

You have an interesting Dell machine, that appears to be set up to work in a networked environment.
Have you recently uninstalled or disabled some features of a previously active (SQL) Structured Query Language

Machine security is always a top priority, but if you are operating this machine in a company/corporate environment or actively participate with other users on a network, the implications of security increase due to their vulnerability to you, and your vulnerability to them.

If it were me, I would wait my turn and benefit from the recommendations of a HJT Advisor.
I'd appreciate the review, even if it resulted in a "clean bill of health".

In the meantime, you may benefit from a good quality overview of this one specific machine's hardware, operating system, peripherals, and software functioning.

You can get such a quality overview with easy to read/understand results printed out as one page presentations of current performance of System, Memory, Hard Disk, Internet, Windows Operating system, and Security.

If you are interested, go to: http://www.pcpitstop.com (it's free, safe, and secure)
Click on Full Tests.
You will be asked to register with a valid email address and to select your own password.
After your registration is complete, click on Full Tests again to begin the test.
You will be asked to accept an ActiveX that allows the test to run on your machine. (it's safe and takes about 2-5 minutes depending on your internet access)

In the event that you would like additional information/recommendations after receiving your Full Test Results, you can post a link from your Results, back here into this thread and we can take a look together.

To post a link to your results, copy and past the full Techexpress link here as a reply in this thread.

Best Regards