Let me explain this whole thing. First off the computer has been affected by a kazaa virus downloaded over a year ago.
It changed the icons of My computer, My Network Places, and Recycle Bin to Michael Jackson albums. Though a virus was found and deleted, the icons to this date, and the appearance, are not able to be changed. I do not believe this problem to have any effect on the current situation, just wanted to explain all i possibly could just in case it helps.
The current situation is that a virus was accessed by either my mother or my father, and apparently, my father restarted the computer to alleviate some problems tuesday night. wednesday morning the computer was at 70% doing a disk check on some file, i do not remember, and later that night (around 10:00pm) it completed its cycle.
That's when i accessed the computer and realized that there was no internet connection, and no icon in the lower right hand corner (where the dual computer screens appear) indicating anything at all. Also no shortcuts were working, error messages showed up that none of the startup .lnk files could be found, and that internet expoler did not work. I used system restore to fix the problem with all the shortcuts, but still no internet. Frustrated and unable to comprehend the problem, i shut the computer down, and went to other things.
The next morning i logged in, and had ideas on how to fix the problem. Upon investigation i opened the networks connections folder. It was slow to load up, and gave me an error message about not being able to detect network settings. so i attempted to create a network connection, and got an error message. I investigated into the network places file, and saw nothing, so i attempt to create a network. The network setup wizard would not open, the windows firewall would not open (ICS not enabled), and no error message was displayed. just click, and nothing. so i went into internet options thru a non working internet explorer to find that i couldnt change the default connection.
I ran McAfee Anti Virus, and found one infected file, deleted it, and nothing changed. So i used system restore once more, disabled system restore to expose the files to anti-virus, and ran McAfee in safe mode with networking. No viruses were found, and i could not create a network or a network connection, yet alone connect to the internet.
Convinced the problem was beyond my fixing, i called comcast (my ISP) to seek a solution. They ran me through the usual, internet options, network connection, and tried a couple of things i did not know. They had me Start> Run "Cmd" and had me type "ipconfig" into the DOS script when it appeared. Again, an error message. So they had me right click my network places, and go down to properties. It would not open, and showed no error message. They had me unplug/replug the modem (the usual stuff) bypass the router, and THEY determined that i was online, but still, I had no access to internet. After 5 conversations leading to and ending the same way, i lost faith in them as well.
Now i am lucky that i have my own computer, and that the house connection runs thru a router, because i can ask for help here, from my computer. This confirms (to me at least) that the problem is internal on my fathers computer, and i have no idea how to fix it.
Short version:
Check disk screws up everything: shortcuts don't work, no internet.
Used system restore and anti-virus: shortcuts work, no internet.
Cannot create new connection, cannot access network setup wizard, cannot access windows firewall, cannot enable ICS.
Cannot access properties of my network places, cannot report IP thru DOS.
Modem and router allow me to access internet on this computer.
Can anyone help me with this?