Strange Windows Vista Internet Issue

[atticusr5]

Hey everyone I am posting this question for a friend of mine.

Yesterday after he left school he has not been able to use wifi connections what so ever. The problem is odd because it happened once in a sudden. He has an Acer laptop running Vista 32bit. Now, the laptop is able to connect to networks, see other networks, and when he connects, he does not see the little yellow exclamation point that signals a problem. Once he is connected, he can not open web pages in either IE or Chrome (those are the browsers he has).

We messed with the network settings (making it a public or private network) but that did not help. We have also installed Service Pack 2 from windows update.

I know the problem is vague but I was wondering if anyone has any ideas, perhaps driver issues?

He will be testing the usage of his Ethernet port but I will let you guys know.

Thanks

[caperjack]

lets start with a hijackthis log ,don't check and fix anything until you get instructions to do so .download hijackthis and scan and save log ,copy and paste the log back here ,thanks .
http://download.cnet.com/Trend-Micro-HijackThis/3000-8022_4-10227353.html

[atticusr5]

ended up being malware, a simple cnet download and got it back

thanks for all the help