new spyware?

Hi everyone,

My school is having some trouble with a few computers and I thought some one here could help. The computers are Dell Optiplex GX150's, running Windows 98 SE. The problem is a few of the computers cant go to google. IE gives them a DNS error. The IE version is 5.50.4807.2300. But to complicate things further, you cant go to www.google.com, images.google.com, news.google.com, but you can go to labs.google.com. I have cleared the cache, deleted all the cookies and history, installed AV(Macafee), and run the new version of Adaware, but nothing fixed the problem. I have checked the hosts.sam file to make sure there is no entry there and I can ping google.com, but when I put the ip address into the address bar, it goes back to the DNS error page. Also, I can get to www.google.com with Netscape v7, which I also cleared the cache, etc., just to make sure.

I hope this isnt too much, but everyone always wants more info in the posts. If anyone needs anything else, just say so. Thanks.

Hrmm, I doubt it has anything to do with spyware. My guess is that your school's network administrator has setup certain restrictions on Internet Explorer (or has disabled Internet Explorer from connecting to the internet entirely). Try other sites in IE and see if they work.

Again though, I highly doubt this is spyware.

i can understand why a school would disallow google but it doesnt make sense that only a few machines are affected and i dont think if google were blocked using ie itself it would show a 'DNS' error.

can ie reach google using http://64.233.161.104

is the school using a proxy?

I don't know if this included with what you tried but go to command prompt and type "ipconfig /registerdns'

Otherwise, I'm outta ideas, I guess its one of those must be there situations.

[edit]
Spelling.

Quote:

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I have checked the hosts.sam file

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THe sample Hosts file is seldom touched by hijackers.. and certainly not used by IE...
the file is just Hosts no extension

Cheers

Thanks for all the replys everyone.

The problem is that all the computers used to be able to go to google, but now some of them can't, and the symptoms are starting to move to other computers. At first, only one or two had problems, but now its five or six. I also dont think the admins blocked google because you can get to google with netscape and you can get to google labs, even in IE.

Thanks for the correction on the hosts file Und3ertak3r, I didnt realize there where two versions of it on windows.

Tedob, the school only lets us log into one box at a time, so I'll switch boxes and test the ip address you gave me.

Well the ip address didnt work, it just gave me the same error. I can also add firefox to the list of browsers that work.

I fixed it. ipconfig /registerdns didnt work, but renewing the adapter did. Maybe a stale address or something? Thanks for all the help, now I just need to log on to all the computers(20-ish) to find the ones that dont work and renew that adapter on them. :( That should take the rest of the period.

Oops, I spoke too soon. That only works for one of the computers. Does anyone else see anything I'm doing wrong here, or is this just on of those things that happens and it cant really be fixed?