My computer won't allow me to connect to the Internet. Help!

Sadly, the Microsoft Answers forum does not prompt for any kind of system information when a new question is asked so we know nothing about your system.  Not knowing fundamental information about a problem prolongs the frustration and agony of resolving these issues.

This dereliction and gross deficiency in the MS Answers forums implementation unnecessarily prolongs the resolution of simple problems.

Perhaps someday they will fix this terrible oversight.

Maybe someday the XP forums "Ask a question" dialog will ask these questions automatically when a new thread is started so I do not have to ask them every single time.  It might even be possible to resolve an issue in a single reply when enough information is provided.

Thank you MS Answers, for making the resolution of simple problems as frustrating and time consuming as possible.

Please provide additional information about your system as best you can:

What is your system make and model?

What is your XP Version and Service Pack?

Describe your current antivirus and anti malware situation:  McAfee, Symantec, Norton, Spybot, AVG, Avira!, MSE, Panda, Trend Micro, CA, Defender, ZoneAlarm, PC Tools, Comodo, etc.

Was the issue preceded by a power interruption, aborted restart, or improper shutdown?  (this includes plug pulling, power buttons, removing the battery, etc.)

Does the afflicted system have a working CD/DVD drive?

Do you have a genuine bootable XP installation CD (this is not the same as any Recovery CDs that came with your system)?

If the system used to work properly, what do you think might have changed since the last time it did work properly?


The best I can offer you are these general purpose resolution ideas:

Let's verify your network connection properties.

Some malware will tamper with these settings and your anti malware software can't tell if you changed them or malware changed them so after removing any infections, it will just leave the settings as it finds them (this is usually a good thing) but may leave your Internet access disabled.
 
Click Start, Run and in the box enter:

inetcpl.cpl

Click OK to launch the Internet Properties control panel applet, choose Connections, LAN settings. 

Or, from Internet Explorer click Tools, Internet Options, Connections, LAN Settings.

These settings control your Internet access for all browsers.

(If you make any adjustments, write them down so you can undo the adjustments if you need to)

On most non corporate environments, there will be a check in Automatically detect settings and the other boxes are (like Proxy server) are UNchecked. 


Automatically detect setting = checked
Use automatic configuration script = UNchecked
Use a proxy server for your LAN = UNchecked


Make any adjustments and click OK, OK to save the settings.

Check your settings for the way your network adapter obtains it's IP and DNS settings.  On most home systems, these settings should be set so the system will obtain the settings automatically.

If you have another system on your network that is working, you can compare those settings with the settings on the system that is not working and make adjustments.

Click Start, Settings, Control Panel, Network Connections and select your current network connection.

On the General tab, click Properties.

In the drop down list in the middle, locate and highlight the Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) selection and click Properties.

In the Internet Protocol Properties window, the usual selections are to obtain the IP and DNS settings automatically.  Enable the following two options:

Obtain an IP address automatically
Obtain DNS Server address automatically

The rest of the options in the screen should then be grayed out/unavailable.

Make any adjustments and click OK, OK to save the settings.

Restart your computer and test your connectivity.

If that doesn't fix it, do this:

Click Start, Settings, Control Panel, Network Connections and select your current network connection.

On the General tab, click Properties. In the drop down list in the middle, locate and highlight the Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) selection and click Properties. Advanced. There should be a DNS tab. Please make sure the following options are selected :

Bullet point in append primary and connection specific dns suffixes and a tick in append parent suffixes of the primary dns suffix and also a tick in register this connections addresses in DNS.

On the WINS tab check that enable LMHOSTS lookup is ticked and use the default setting for netbios. Now OK out of all these windows. If you changed any of those settings please let us know.

I'm not very good with computers so might not be able to answer all if your questions but I will try. 
I have a samsung NC10 designed for Microsoft Windows XP. My computer works with Internet explorer and my current anti virus is McAfee. The computer does not have a DVD/CD drive. The only reason I can think of that may have caused this problem is that I was recently abroad staying at a school and in order to connect to the schools network I had to see the on site computer technicians and they did something to my computer so that I could access their secure network but I don't know exactly what they did. 
I have completed the first set of instructions you gave me and have set my LAN settings to what you instructed. However when I attempt to complete the next set of instructions I cannot proceed. On the network connections page I can see the wireless connection: wireless connection 2 connected. But when I click on it's properties it pops up with "an unexpected error occurred" click "ok".