Acidentally I posted this in the networking forum, sorry
But here it is anyway:

Here's a thinker for you experts, and I mean, it's a doozy... I've checked all over the place w/ many people and no one can figure it out

So here goes...

I am connected to the internet fine, and note: I have tried this one more than 3 different ISPs (meaning, I tried at school, home, and in the airport between w/ no luck), but most of the programs on my computer can't connect to the internet for whatever reason. Funny thing is, that only two programs of mine can access the internet: Internet Explorer (hence how I'm typing this now) and Aol Instant Messenger. Other programs like: Symantec antivirus, spybot s&d, steam, ventrilo, gamerail, skype, itunes,. basically everything is being interfered with something stopping them from being able to update or log on, or whichever kind of action it tries to do that requires the use of the internet.
OH! Almost forgot, the only firewall I have on this system is the windows firewall that comes with Vista (yes my operating system), and I deactivated it but with no luck.


I've tried a number of things:
System restore, full scans with Symantec Antivirus and Spybot (but nothing came up), ipconfig/flushing, I fooled around with my network and internet options, and I fooled around with some other stuff... but nothing seems to have worked

And what's weird is that a program, steam, was working fine on the internet a few days ago, and then suddenly that program stopped working too.

I've had this problem for at least two months now, but it hasn't really bothered me until the Steam incident (my main source for playing video games)

Hopefully this makes enough sense that you can help me out.

Thanks a bunch in advanced,
Bryce

The connection that you're using for the internet, is it your default connection?

The Firewall you're running, does it allow the programs you're trying to get access to the internet on? Both windows firewall, and any additional software you have running.

Are you running a IPv6 protection program? e.g. peer guardian. Is this allowing the connection for the programs.

Does your machine have the ports closed that the program requires? Are all ports open or just 80? (80 is the default hyper-text transfer protocol / 'http')

Best of luck, Hope this helps.
Louis.

The connection that you're using for the internet, is it your default connection?
It is default, on whichever network I am at the time, but its not the connection because the same thing happens on different networks (ie at the airport, at home, and at school)

The Firewall you're running, does it allow the programs you're trying to get access to the internet on? Both windows firewall, and any additional software you have running.
Other than the firewall provided by windows vista, I am not using a firewall. And that firewall that vista gives I disabled, which didn't help me at all. The only other programs partially protecting my system are symantec antivirus, spybot search and destroy, and windows defender... but they all require a physical activation to work, and won't act up by themselves. (note: symantec and spybot can't connect to the internet, I had to install their definitions manually via website)

Are you running a IPv6 protection program? eg, peer guardian. Is this allowing the connection for the programs.
No

Does your machine have the ports closed that the program requires? are all ports open or just 80? (80 is the default hyper-text transfer protocol / 'http')
How do I access this? Because this sounds like it may be related to the problem. The only way I know of to access ports is to, when home on our linksys router, type in 192.168.1.1 and manually allow or disallow ports to go through our linksys firewall... but this sholuldn't be the case because on the other networks I can't do this action, such as my school controls the ports that I can access on their network, and the airport would allow anything through since it's a public network.

What version of vista? x32 or x64?

on 64, there have been a few application problems and I think most can be solved by:
Go to your control panel, then to device manager. Expand the network devices category and then right click on your network adapter. Click propertied and then click on the advanced tab. Go
down to TCP Checksum offload and disable them, both IPv4 and IPc6.

on 32, I'll have a dig around the internet. I don't like vista, its still unstable and there was one automatic update that disabled the internet and the next one re-enabled it. I don't know if this will help, esp if you disabled your fire wall : http://www.windowshelp.microsoft.com...b81ab1033.mspx

Best of luck, I'll have a look for some more x32 info for you.
Louis.

If it makes a difference, my operating system is more specifically windows Vista Home Premium. 32-bit Operating System

My computer specs are:

Manufacturer:ASUS Tek Computer Inc.
Model:Asus Notebook G1 Series
Processor: Intel Core 2 duo cpu T7500 @2.2 GHz 2.2 GHz
Memory(RAM): 2047MB

Thanks again

By the way, I took your advice, checked out that website and looked into the ports required for internet access by other programs... and like you said, the most common one is 80 (which just so happens to be the same for iTunes), I went to windows firewall and allowed port 80, but there was no change. Sorry

I also tried msconfig to completely stop windows firewall from running on startup and all the other security measures
But that didn't work


I asked a pro, my friend, who's been doing computer tech help like this for upwards of 20 years now... he was stumped. And he thought it was an application problem uniform to each separate application. So we looked into one example, itunes, tried uninstalling, reinstalling, newer version... blah dee blah, turns out if youo check the web, a lot of people have this same problem, but for them it's just itunes, not everything like it is for me.

I think, if its affecting all of my applications except AIM and Internet Explorer... it's probably a Vista problem. But I don't know.

Vista has a new Ipv4 and Ipv6 setup ( I believe ) and a lot of programs use this, however most programs such as iTunes will already have a version that is compatible with Vista.

I'm Stumped, I have also noticed there are a few forums with the same question.

I know on Vista you can open individual ports, but if the firewall is off they should all be open anyway. Have you tried killing windows defender and UAC?

Louis.

Yes...

Sorry, but I'm out of ideas.

Sorry I couldn't help, I hope you find a solution,
Louis.

I ended up just reformatting

I know I didn't want to. But it seems to have fixed the problem (would probably fix almost any software problem)

Thanks for the effort anyway
-Bryce