I have set my daughter up on a wireless router for her computer... worked ok for a while. Now we cant get a browser to open... I have tried IE and Firefox. When I type a different web page in the address bar it gets me no where.

I have reset the connection... I don't thingk that's the problem, because the lights on her router are working.

I really think she has a virus, or some spy ware... I tried to copy CCleaner and Spybot onto a cd, then install onto her computer... I keep getting an error file, so I can't even get those programs to run to try and rule that out...

Any help would be appreciated !!!!
Thanks
Sue

Which operating system do you have?

What is the error message that you get when you try install the programs on her computer? Do you get an error message when you can't open an internet browser on her computer? To help you further we need more information about what is going on with the computer.

On daughters computer she is running windows me
when the browser opens, instead of going to www.bleepingcomputer.com (if this was her home page)
we get a whole wack load of other symbols and letters, and the message on the browser page saying that the server can not be located

First verify that the physical connections are OK. Check the connection to both the router and the computer, check that the lights are on for both the router if it has them, and on the network port on the computer.

Now we need to check for an internet (IP) address.
Open up a command prompt: Start > Run > enter "command" w/o quotes
Type in ipconfig
Most routers will assign you an IP address of 192.168.1.x If you see something like this, skip to the next paragraph.
If you have an address like 0.0.0.0 or 169.254.x.x, your computer isn't getting a valid IP from your router. Try this command: Ipconfig /release_all
and then ipconfig /renew_all
If this gives you a new address, we know the router hardware works, the network card works, and the internet configuration (tcp/ip) works.

Next, run the ipconfig command again and look for the address for the Default Gateway. Usually this is 192.168.1.1, but it could be different for your particular router. Take note of it, and enter it into this next command. If it's the default I used, the command will look like this:
ping 192.168.1.1
If this command works correctly than you should get four replies. This verifies that the computer is communicating with the router.

Try these steps and tell us what you find.

This may be just a shot in the dark, but quite often the wireless signal will be lost by the router though the wired computer still works. A simple router reboot often fixes it - just pull the power from the router, wait a few seconds, plug it back in.

I'm guessing that when you say you can't get a browser to open, you mean that the browser starts but will not display a page correctly if at all. That is, unless you have an address bar on the taskbar.

I finally got around to working on computer last night.
Did the ipconfig thing, and when I renewed i still did not get anywhere. the message that was received when I pinged the ip address was 4 bundles sent, 100% lost.
If you need the exact message I will have to go do it again, and write them down, but that was the basic gist of it.

Your winsock might be corrupted. Please read this and let us know whether you are confortable doing that. If not we will do a follow up step by step.

What was the IP address the computer had? Did it start with 169?