Internet Explorer - Page Not Found! ARRRGH!
short version:
If you cannot browse the Internet but can use applications like Instant Messenger etc... then check that you don't have a whole bunch of spyware on your machine. Search the Internet Explorer newsgroups for "page not found" or spyware before paving your machine.
long version:
I am currently in Sydney visiting customers and user groups; I also presented at the Australia and New Zealand Tech.Ed's which both really rocked! Anyway I generally travel with two laptops for reduncancy - when problems happen to me they always happen when I'm on the road!
So last night I started walking through my demos for today on the machine that I run Visual Studio .NET 2003 from; my other machine is reserved for beta software like Visual Studio 2005. Within a few minutes I realized that there was a problem... Internet Explorer was reporting "Page Not Found" for every site I tried to hit. What ensued was the typical round of debugging efforts one undertakes in these situations. The first thing I did was an "ipconfig" from the command shell and check for an IP address which I had. Then I pinged the router in the family home; sure enough I found it to be alive and well. Next step was to ping a server on the net - sure enough I got replies to my pings. Side note: some sites disallow ping packets for DOS attack reasons, I believe, so it is worth trying a few sites.
At this point I smelt virus. So I went ahead and performed a full scan - nothing. I then made sure that I had the latest virus definitions and rescanned again - nothing - DOH! I can't remember how many hours had past by this point but I was starting to consider paving the machine and reinstalling everything. Not a small job considering I didn't bring any CD's with me - at Redmond we have our own software available to us on the corporate network. So now it was looking like I would have to suck everything down a DSL line - right now I'm starting to think that this will be all nighter...
The night before, Zaneta, a friend who is house sitting for Scarlett and I whilst I'm away on this trip reported the same problem. I tried trouble shooting my home system for an hour over the phone or so but to no avail. I figured that I would check it out when I got home and could get my mits onto the box.
At this time I had many hours invested into resolving this issue - which I must do by the next day because I have presentations to give. Luckily enough I had a second computer with which I could use to search the net - in fact there are several more in the house. I went ahead and seached the newsgroups via https://microsoft.com/communities for "page not found" here is the results link:
https://communities2.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/en-us/default.aspx?query=%22page+not+found%22+internet+explorer&dg=&cat=en_US_850c4b7a-113f-45f2-93ff-9d21e03b29f3&lang=en&cr=&pt=&catlist=93e29c6e-09cd-400c-8ac1-71bf1284a66c&dglist=&ptlist=&exp=&sloc=en-us
Before too long it became apparent that I wasn't the only one with this problem. I found a post within a few mintutes that recommended SpyBot-S&D and suggested that SpyWare was most likely the issue. So I downloaded the software which is Freeware - meaning that the download is fully functional. Side note: always be sure to read the licence agreements on anything you download before using. Well I went ahead and ran the tool - sure enough it fixed the problem; plus the machine is running much quicker. The amount of issues that SpyBot found was staggering, too many to list here. Oh I fogot to mention that a USB key saved me here as I was easily able to transfer the SpyBot setup program to the affected machine. I then rang home and had Zaneta log on to Instant Messenger, which was still working - btw this seems to be a telling factor that spyware is the issue, since generally only the browser is affected. I transferred the setup package to her by messenger and had her run it. Sure enough my home machine's problems were fixed too.
At this time I surfed immediately to the SpyBot-S&D site and made a donation. I must admit I have never made a donation to a freeware creator before; probably because I never really use freeware for very long but in this case many, many hours of effort were saved and I was extremely grateful.
I am not endorsing one spyware cleaning application over another because I haven't used the rest and there are a bunch out there but SpyBot-S&D worked for me. So if you find yourself in a similar situation and have access to another machine; check that spyware isn't in fact the problem before you pave it (ie format c:/q/u :-)).
Finally let me finish by thanking the developer(s) of SpyBot-S&D for their generous contribution to the Windows community at large. I for one am a happy especially since I was able to get some sleep last night. Ok now on to my demos...
Oh, if you made it this far and you haven't got an issue you should consider checking your machine for spyware anyway - you may just be surprised with what you find. I scanned several of the other machines around the house and found issues with each. I gather from the little that I have read that spyware enters primarily through accepting dialogs on web sites; this is not the only attack vector but would seem to be the primary one. Please note that I am not an expert on the subject and could be completely wrong about the attack vectors. If you know more than me on the subject, wouldn't be hard given that I spent only a few minutes researching it then please feel free to comment.
HTH someone - happy surfing...
ps checkout https://microsoft.com/spyware too, thanks Jesper
Comments
Anonymous
August 11, 2004
A good URL to remember is www.microsoft.com/spyware -- this page has plenty of info, and links to Ad-Aware and Spybot S&D, and is simple enough to remember next time you're doing phone support for a loved one :)Anonymous
August 11, 2004
The comment has been removedAnonymous
August 11, 2004
Tell me something though. I'm really trying not to be adversarial, I'm just confused. How does one be smart enough to work for MSFT and at the same time be brainless enough to "let" spy-ware get on one's machine? I've cleaned many a machine filled to the brim with spy-ware (AdAware is my choice for "cleaning agents"), but none of the machines were my own. I've had three personal machines running for the past 2 years now with daily to hourly internet browsing taking place (and to a LOT of "shady" web sites) without a single piece of spy-ware ever getting installed on one of them. Sorry for the confusion...Anonymous
August 11, 2004
Hmm, maybe I shouldn't work for MSFT :-) I must have been lucky enough to have slipped through the spyware IQ safety net before it was locked down. I'm sure that I am the exception to the rule, please don't think that all MSFT employees are as ignorant as me.Anonymous
August 12, 2004
The comment has been removedAnonymous
August 13, 2004
just wanted to add that i have tried many of the anti-spyware products and i have found spy sweeper to be the best of the bunch. it found many more spywares on my systems then did spybot and/or adaware did combined. futher it is updated regularly with new definitions for the latest spywares out on the internet. here is the link:
http://www.webroot.com/wb/products/spysweeper/index.php
and no i am not the "webroot/wendys guy" ;) i have no affiliations with the company other than i find their spy sweeper product to be the best out there.Anonymous
August 17, 2004
What worries me greatly is that you didn't think of Spyware first...surely you've heard of this long before now and know that quite a lot of internet software (kazaa, messager clients, etc) contain spyware.
It sounds very "end userish" to fall into the spyware trap :|Anonymous
August 18, 2004
The comment has been removedAnonymous
May 30, 2008
short version: If you cannot browse the Internet but can use applications like Instant Messenger etc... then check that you don't have a whole bunch of spyware on your machine. Search the Internet Explorer newsgroups for "page not found" orAnonymous
June 05, 2008
short version: If you cannot browse the Internet but can use applications like Instant Messenger etc... then check that you don't have a whole bunch of spyware on your machine. Search the Internet Explorer newsgroups for "page not found" or