I've been searching everywhere for an answer to this same problem!!! I am interested in whatever you can come up with as this as been driving me crazy for about a month now. Mine, too, worked fine until one day. I am curious about the ms updates because I did do a couple around the same time. I am going to try to remove them and see if that makes a difference. The only other problem I am having (occured also in the last month) is I cannot update anything anymore because suddenly I dont have "administrative rights" (I've posted this one already). My system is approx. 6 yrs old but have never really had any problems until now.
I have a Pionex pc, running W98se. I am connected to the internet via SBC DSL, and have installed the SBC anti-virus, spyware, etc. I'm not really sure about firewalls, but I'm pretty sure SBC has one built in if I remember correctly. I use IE 6.0.2800.1106.
I've googled my brains out searching for answers to both my problems, so far without any luck. Any help you can give me would be appreciated.
