Posted 23 December 2008 - 02:57 PM
I read this post with great interest as someone I was helping had lost pictures in OE -- primarily in ads. They became red X's. There were also occasional problems connecting to the Internet. I tried many suggestions found here & elsewhere. However, when I ran SUPERAntiSypware in safe mode, it found one Registry entry for Rogue.webmediaviewer. That was good, but there were still problems.
I finally thought to check the Internet Connections (in Control Panel), then LAN settings. The check box for Use a Proxy Server was checked (but not by me)! Looking at the Advanced settings, the proxy server was set to 127.0.0.1, which sent me back to my own hosts file.
Once I deleted this entry, and unchecked Use a Proxy Server, ouila! pictures were back in OE and other Internet connections (such as updating Spybot Search & Destroy) began working again.
This is the second time (with someone else's computer) that the proxy settings had been changed to 127.0.0.1. I hope I've learned my lesson to check this setting, especially when any malware is in the picture. (oh, this all was on an XP Pro box).
~Larry.