Hi all,
I'm just trying to get an idea of how people are in this state, if you were affected by this and @LeizyFrog's steps helped, can you reply with the answer to the following questions?
- Did you have a proxy server listed in the Proxy server box in LAN Settings?
- If you had issues where LAN Settings being disabled, are you on a corporate/work network?
A huge thanks to @LeizyFrog for the steps above. If people are wary of downloading the file above, you most likely don't need to if you are on your personal PC. I think that should only be necessary if you are on a work network and the network administrator has disabled the button.
In this case, you should NOT follow the steps above as you're likely going against the wishes of your network administrator and they might get cross at you.
Here are some less scary sounding steps that achieve the same thing in the case of home networks.
- Open your start menu
- Type Internet options and click the item that appears
- Click the Connections tab
- Click the LAN Settings button
- Check if there is anything in the Address box in the Proxy server section. If there is, see below.
- Untick all the tick/checkboxes apart from the top one, which should be ticked.
- Press OK twice.
NOTE: There are very few reasons to have a proxy server set at home. If you have one set in the box shown above you might have malware on your machine. You should run a scan from a reputable anti-malware package as simply removing the proxy server using the steps above will not be enough to remove it.
If the LAN Settings box IS disabled, and you ARE at home, you can do the following:
Open Notepad, paste in the following (this is copied from LeizyFrog's file above, I'm just posting it here so you can get it from an "official" source.
Paste in:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Control Panel]
"Connection Settings"=dword:00000000
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings]
"ProxySettingsPerUser"=dword:00000001
Save the file to your desktop by going to File then Save as, then navigating to the Desktop. Type in "FixAshbeard.reg" including double quotes and click Save.
Go to your desktop and double click the file. You'll be asked for confirmation to apply it.