1st thing to do is to verify that your DNS is working.
Go to a DOS prompt and ping 199.0.0.1. If you get replies, you're talking on the Internet. Then try pinging
(or other website you know responds to pings -
does not). We're not interested in the ping reply, rather the name resolution. You should see:
C:\WINDOWS\Desktop>ping
Pinging
[64.15.247.200] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 64.15.247.200: bytes=32 time=27ms TTL=110
Reply from 64.15.247.200: bytes=32 time=41ms TTL=110
Reply from 64.15.247.200: bytes=32 time=27ms TTL=110
Reply from 64.15.247.200: bytes=32 time=41ms TTL=110
Ping statistics for 64.15.247.200:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 27ms, Maximum = 41ms, Average = 34ms
The IP address: 64.15.247.200 tells you that your DNS is working. If it does not return an IP and ping fails, you have a DNS problem. The fact that Netscape isn't working either tells me that it's your DNS. If you're running through a router, and using the router's IP as your DNS, try getting your ISP's DNS IP info and putting that into your network config.