First, thanks to anyone in advance who can help me out with this, I've been trying off and on to fix my girlfriend's computer for a month now, and I finally figured that, as so many people on here work in IT or in the computer industry, somebody might know how to fix what's going on. So, here goes:

1) My girlfriend has a mediocre Compaq w/ onboard video, celeron processor, etc. She just got cable internet when she moved into her new apartment in mid-June. Worked great, really fast.

2) One day there was a power surge, something happened, internet wouldn't work anymore. I told her the ethernet card was probably fried, but we checked it out, and e-mail, AIM, and Napster all still work - just Netscape and IE that won't put out. We called Roadrunner (cable provider) and tried to open winipcfg.exe - it declared an invalid page fault (uggh!). Roadrunner refused to help, said call Microsoft. Not paying $175 for that call - yet.

3) Got in touch with some people in Dallas for some advice - was told to try reinstalling winipcfg.exe - so I took it from my computer, deleted the old one, replaced it with mine.

4) Worked, reset all the IP addresses, etc. Internet Explorer came right up and worked like a charm.

5) PROBLEM - you close IE, and when you relaunch it won't work. winipcfg.exe starts doing the IPF thing again. I can get it to work again, but its always on a one-shot basis, and frankly I'm sick of having to reinstall everything so my girlfriend can play on the internet.

6) I've heard it could be virtual memory, but none of those settings have been touched. Does anybody know WHY winipcfg.exe is being a bastard? Does anybody know HOW to fix this problem?

 

First thing is check for virus's!!! Then if all is clean go to Network Properties and remove ALL components and remove them....reboot.... windows will re-detect these devices and re-install them...then copy over winipcfg.exe to this machine. I am assuming its Windows 98....if it is not get the latest service pack from www.microsoft.com/downloads for the appropritate version of windows you are running. That should cure the problem....

 

Try re-installing your TCP/IP stack. Control Panel->remove TCP/IP and re-install that protocol.

 

Sorry that I cannot help you with your comp problem.. but I just had to say. I love this board. Not only do we cover every possible acura question.. but now we solve problems that Cnet or Zdnet forums cannot solve.

 

I thought that was done in Control Panel ------>Network.

Then you remove the TCP/IP protocol and reinstall it.

 

Okay, we tried that and still nothing. TCP/IP reinstalled and winipcfg is still messing up, even after I replaced it yet again.

Uggh this is frustrating!

 

What about removing all the Protocols bound to your Ethernet card, removing it, Rebooting, reinstalling it and then adding the protocols back.

 

What OS are you running....I think I know your problem

 

Running Win '98

Also - tried tonight and I can't even get it to run on the one-time-only basis anymore, either.

 

Follow these instructions....this should fix your problem.

1. Quit all running programs.

2. Click Start, and then click Run.

3. Type sfc, and then press ENTER.

4. In System File Checker, click Extract one file from installation disk.

5. In the Specify the system file you would like to restore box, type Wsock32.dll, and then click Start.

6. In the Extract File dialog box, type drive:\Win98 in the Restore from box, where drive is the drive letter of the CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive that contains your Windows 98 CD-ROM, and then click OK.

7. In the Backup File dialog box, click OK. If a The backup folder does not exist. Do you want to create it message appears, click Yes.

8. When you receive an "Extract File" message, click Yes to restart the computer.

 

Thanks a ton! I'll let you know how it goes once I get to try it out tonight

 

the problem is that its a compaq .. god i hate those machines.. they throw all this useless compaq software on it that messes EVERYTHING up .. in any case. waht these people are saying is on the right track .. there also sometimes more sever problems with files in windows that sfc doesnt always catch .. you could try searching the microsoft knowledgebase for this problem. If you want to uninstall all protocols and such, do it from safe mode, since in regular mode, not everything shows up. It's also possible that its the ethernet card drivers.
As a last resort, you could re-install windows.

since you're saying only IS/NS doesnt work, is it possible they're configured for some sort of proxy?

 

Well, the System File Checker thing didn't do it, either. Thankfully, since we're UT students, we can get Microsoft products very, very discounted, so my girlfriend wants to pick up Windows 2000 and have me install it. Apparently her roommate had problems and installed it, and now everything is all better. I'm a bit more hesitant, but we shall see. I'm doing all I can to avoid what I think I have to do - which is format and reinstall. Uggh.

And I know Compaqs suck - so does she now, I think. Best Buy really hosed her on it, too.

Also, have no clue what it is, but MTX_.exe is getting an invalid page fault as well.

 

Did you check for viruses yet?
Also, you dont need to reformat to reinstall. If you install win98 on top of the existing installation, it may very well fix everything without you having to lose data. Windows 2k is dangerous too .. plus if her computer is slow, its gonna make it even slower.