Win xp Winsock Problem

[Soixante]

For some reason as of yesterday i have to keep doing a netsh winsock reset as i cannot connect to internet every 10 minutes,i am using ethernet connection..but have a dongle on another computer that is fine running win8.1..I am usin xp sp3 all up to date on this computer..I have thoroughly scanned with eset AV and super anti spyware with no results..I am unable now to do a system restore,which was working fine a few days before..I was tending to think virus but with the scans comming up negative ,i am at a loss as to why and how to fix this,Any help appreciated

[El Heggunte]

I am usin xp sp3 all up to date on this computer..

Possibly you should NOT have made it sooooo "up-to-date".

FYI, and to begin with, there were several post-SP3 "hotfixes" that were not-compatible with older patches, which caused annoyances such as break the support for XPS files, or make Windows Media Player not work at all.

Now, considering that M$ is the one who most wants to kill Windows XP "once and for all", ......

[Soixante]

Well after doing many tests deleting winsocks folders from registry..re installing..av and spyware checks..i found out the problem was combination of divx media set up using a proxy(how or why this i have no idea) and corrupted and comodo firewall addon"privacy dog" was knocking my Winsock out..this is the second time Comodo has messed my computers up with updates and things! Removed now and using another firewall!..Well thats the theory as i uninstalled them..that was a nightmare trying to uninstall these and left over registry items! Revo uninstaler was only thing that i found could do it and cleared all registry out of it as well!Any as of now 24 hours no problems..I may update to new OS soon anyway..

Thanks

[ranchhand]

comodo firewall addon"privacy dog"

I learned from hard experience that the only thing that can be trusted with Comodo is the firewall itself; any security add-ons, AV, Geek Buddy, blah blah is junk. I nuke it all except for the firewall, which seems to be pretty good.

[jman98]

With regards to Divx Media, they're the evil geniuses behind Open Candy (look it up if you aren't familiar with it) so it's quite possible that you did nothing wrong but installing Divx Media these days just sets up this kind of proxy thing you saw. It wouldn't surprise me at all for that to be the case. Or maybe it was just an installation mistake. I haven't updated Divx Media in maybe 2 years now so I don't know what it's like any more.

As far as firewalls go, I did research before I set up my Win 7 PC at home and I couldn't find a compelling reason to not use the Windows provided firewall. In my opinion the Windows firewall is sufficient for Win 7 and above, but users of older versions of Windows may wish to use 3rd party firewalls.

[El Heggunte]

For Vista and Seven: PCTools Firewall Plus

For XP: Filseclab Personal Firewall

Now you owe me $10