Vista has internet, but IE does not.

On my Vista Ultimate x64 rig, i recently patched Command and Conquer 3 -
Kane's Wrath (no idea if its even relevent, but it finished literally
seconds before.. so i assume its connected) but after that, internet
would not work, well, Vista still detects internet through router, gives
me a IP address and all that, BUT when i try to access the internet,
nothing happeneds, this has happened once or twice before, then i used
system restore to recover a few days, which seemed to fix the problem,
but now its back.

ive tried the network diagnostic tool in vista, but since it thinks it
has internet, it wont do anything.. ive also tried restoring the system,
twice, with no luck.

Internet Explorer cannot display any homepage (as if i had typed a
wrong address), and Firefox wont do anything (same as it did last time
this happened); it opens and all that, but all i get is a blank page
with no address, and it says "done" at the bottom where it usually gives
you small indication of the status. and when i close it, it hangs up 95%
of the time (probably because of whatever vista is doing to prevent
access)

Windows live messenger usually completely locks up upon trying to start
it. on the off chance it does open, it reports a problem with my DNS and
network ports. (but i doubt that that is problem, since my laptop has
internet, from the same connection (split by router)
on that note i cannot get in contact with my router either. so it seems
to be between me and my router, but the really odd thing is that
according to Vista network center everything is fine and dandy. i
*should* have internet!

and Btw.. this is being typed on my laptop.. from the same internet
connection, so its nothing wrong with that. this laptop runs Vista Home
Premium x86.

so as far as my networking knowledge goes, there is a problem with
vista that is not letting me through to the router. only firewall i use
besides the router is windows defender or whatever its called, and i use
Nod32 for antivirus, but it has never caused a problem before..

i have a single outgoing connection which is split by my router, and i
have not changed any settings on the router to promote any sort of
blocking.

Again, Vista says i should have internet, but i cannot actually access
it, but then again, my laptop is running vista aswell (not the same
version) and can access the same connection through the same router.

//slightly annoyed Vista User


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Plasmatic