my ie6/sp1 on windows 98 stopped connecting (server not found) when it had
been working fine. i know i have an interet connection because my eudora
gets and sends email and AVG antivirus gets updates.

also at the same time my netscape stopped loading at all and when i try to
install firefox the install program just disapears. reinstalling netscape
disapears in the middle also.

i suspect some kind of malware. i have stopped the loading of everything at
startup and i makes no differenc. AVG finds nothing when it does a virus
scan and it was running when the problems started.

i noticed that the check for proxy server was there with nothing in the
porxy field and when unchecked it kept coming back untill i stopped all the
programs from loading at startup.

i have tryed reinstalling ie6 and it gives the following error message in a
small window:

"windows update setup may have been unable to use your current proxy
settings"

when i click on the advanced button in the error message an new message pops
up:

"please type the proxy server for your for your lan"

and "connect using a proxy server" is checked

address field has: http:localhost
port field has: 8080

i have erased the fields and unchecked the "connect using a proxy server"
but it still doesnt continue the install

help

thanks