Vista - IE7 & Firefox Stopped working as if no Internet Connection

IE7 & Firefox Stopped working as if no Internet Connection
The Power people came to our door and said they would be turning off the power for 2 hours. I called up to my wife and said do a shutdown on your laptop (Toshiba) and I shut mine down (HP). After the new polls were installed, the power came back on, I was out fishing, came home, turned on my computer, all was fine, went to browse and it (Firefox latest 3xxx). The netwok is fine, AIM loads, my weatherbugs load and get this, EVEN AOL software/browser and what stumps me most, AOL Desktop, which I thought was really even a more generic IE Browser works. FF and IE7 acts as if their is no internet connection.

Wife's was working fine. Reset Sat Modem, Reset Netgear Router. Tried everything I know, crapped out. RESET ROUTER to generic unsecure mode, no different. Uninstallted Mcaffe, nothing, Turned off Windows Firewall, NOTHING. Both browers act like no internet connection (Even went Cat5 hard wire, no change) I am a hardware guy, certainly not a software guy for 25 years. This one has me stumped. As I said AOL works with its browser, desktop works, all the stuff like AIM (standalone) works, Sidebar internet items work, connection is right, no browers.

Any Ideas, wrong forum? Something makes me believe hardware, so I backed it all up and did a simple restore that does not FORMAT or remove files, nothing, went back to SEP 12th Recovery, no help.I am stumped??

Thanks

Run Command Prompt (cmd.exe) as a administrator and insert:

netsh winsock reset +restart

if no help you again run cmd.exe with administrative previlliges and insert:

netsh int ip reset C:\resetlog.txt +restart

Thank you Flavius. I did both, in the order you gave me, it did things, but did not bring back the browsers. Will keep working on it.

Try to reset Internet Explorer settings +restart
Internet Explorer - Reset

Oh lord, I tried all of that normal stuff before I posted. I worked on it for a week, and thank you for your time and support. I just did a backup and complete restore from scratch and it is working again. Last resort, but I was at whit's end, I will never know now what this was, I still think it is hardware related, but what else does a hardware guy believe anyway

It is resolved now. due to complete restore as it came out of the box.

how do you run command prompt in as admin? Mine says something about elevation. im a noooooob

Right click on cmd.exe as administrator