IE 6.0.2900 Page not found

I have a Sony laptop which is used in various locations with dial-up and broadband connections but mainly wireless in an office with a router. Lately IE does not open any pages, it simply displays the default "The page cannot be displayed ".

In a Dos window I can ping IP addresses and I can ping urls and get replys so the DNS is OK. Typically (though not always) I get a popup window "Internet Explorer could not open the search page ". I've also created a new User and this has the same problem.

I've re registered the dlls as suggested in http://www.windowsbbs.com/showpost.php?p=232643

Other than this I'm scratching my head

 

Forgot one of my basic rules in thesse situations......

CHECK THE FIREWALL!!!

For some reason the user had blocked IE in the Norton Firewall settings.

Doh!