Baffled, nay flummoxed by IE initial access problem

I use Win XP on two unnetworked PCs, operating through a Netgear DG 834 router, with ZA Pro 5 on both.

Over the last two weeks, the problem that I've been having is that when I try to open IE, the process hangs around 'searching' for www.plusnet.co.uk, my ISP site, which is my homepage. If I allow it to search, the 'page not found' message will show up. However, if I switch to, say, the BBC site while it's searching, it will open up, and clicking on the 'Home' icon will take me straight to the Plusnet page.

I checked the TCP/IP settings, and all seems okay - the two DNS servers are there correctly. I tried (soft) re-booting the router, but that didn't work. I believe that there's a button somewhere that I can try a hard boot from, so I'll check for that, too. Hijack This shows no dodgy entries at all.

Can anyone help, please?

Thanks very much.

 

Problem now solved after I tried ideas suggested by fellow-users of my ISP's user forum.

Just in case someone ever needs a possible answer to a similar problem, (i) I don't 100% understand how the host file operates, but I removed one entry from there (for DCS), and Win Patrol told me that Winlogon Shell and Winlogon userinit subsequently added themselves to startup (those additions also happened on the second PC, without my touching the host file, and I think that this was the crunch issue) (ii) I successfully flushed the DNS cache through DOS, and initiated DNS registration (iii) I noticed that the stored homepage setting was a little different from what it ought to have been, and corrected it.

Back to solitary contemplation of my navel.. 'O, cyberspace, thou art a lonely place, but oh, how I love thy face...'

 

That`s good to know, thanks.

 

Hi there,
the DCS entry should be this:
64.91.255.87 www.dcsresearch.com (and i would add one for www.dcsresearch.com.au too)
which domain name no longer is DCS's; the entry in your HOSTS file was added with your TDS install to prevent you from getting to that (now) cookie/spy/tracking/adplacing site and enable you to jump immediately to the Private TDS forum at once with the F5 from the TDS console.
It's up to you to leave that safe protection there or delete it if you don't need/want it.
If there was another entry it could be interesting to know about that.

I don't quite understand how that entry would affect your ISP's DNS which is even on a complete different IP address 212.159.8.137
Maybe you like to add that entry to your HOSTS file and see if that changes anything:
212.159.8.137 www.plusnet.co.uk
and/or add that site to the trusted zones in your firewall and IE configuration.

And less do i understand the further analysis of your computer's happening in relation to this DCS entry!

 

Thanks, Jooske. I see that I didn't make myself at all clear !

I actually think that somehow, while 'tweaking' my XP services, I managed to remove Winlogon Shell and Winlogon userinit from startup, and that was the issue.

It would be interesting to see if someone more knowledgeable than I can confirm this. However, I can live without knowing the definitive answer on that, to be honest ...