Windows 7 - Cannot connect to the internet

Do you have McAfee? It was updated at about the same time and it seems to be the cause of this problem.

See this "critical" McAfee notice -

Some customers may experience a loss of network connectivity and/or errors in McAfee Security Center after a recent update

You should do the McAfee fix, if applicable.

I had McAfee but the connection started working again of its own accord so I thought I was clear of problems. However, when I checked it said it had been doing routine checks for updates but failed when I told it to do one manually. So staying with McAfee without following their fix procedure would have put my PC at risk by not being updated and, as further McAfee announcements have since explained, the application was not referring to its threats database correctly. Actually, I removed it then installed Microsoft Security Essentials instead & my IE response is quicker than I have known it [even though I had had the McAfee add-ons disabled for ages].

I've had to run the McAfee MCPR removal a few times before and it caused a licence problem if the PC was not connected to the internet during the removal. The McAfee support chat had to reset their records to allow reinstallation-reactivation. Here's their chat link - McAfee support - contains the link to chat

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If you don't have McAfee then Windows update KB2705219 might also be a cause as uninstalling that has appeared to fix the problem for some users. To uninstall an update - Control panel, Programs & features, [left-hand side of the window] View installed updates. Wait until the system has finished searching for the list of updates. Select required update then right-click & Uninstall.