Cannot open microsoft pages at all

[Waahid]

I am facing certain issue with my web browser. Recently I had switched to Internet Explorer as my old web browser is not working well. I was using Firefox and in that I had downloaded a extension of reading web codes. But as I translate them the entire browser hangs with my system also and only after force reboot the system went back to normal. The cpu consumption in the Task Manager shows a sign usage of 100%. But the same things work well after removing extension. In Internet Explorer I found that I cannot access all the website of Microsoft. As I was on Microsoft Update site to download some updates manually but the same does not shows any effect. The pages is just blank but simply does not shows out any effect. I refreshed the page many times but some site does not loads well. Does this some type of compatibility issue of the browser with some site.

[Daniel23]

This can a compatibility issue in your system. The first thing for this I will recommend you to re-install the web browser back again which may can fix the issue. Sometime due to corruption of system files causes the matter. The other thing is that you can try to download a fresh copy of setup file from Microsoft Site and then run the setup. Do not forget to run Windows Update so that your system can get useful updates from Microsoft. There is one more thing which can be troubleshoot here which is the host file in Windows. The hosts file which is found at the base in the systems under Unix/etc/hosts is the first step in the transposition of a hostname fqdn ip address. It is possible to block some sites websites via this file. The file is located in the system32 folder of Windows. Now here is why this file in important. This file is queried first before a DNS server address on the web. Therefore, for each name configured in this file with an IP address after a space, it opens a connection to the IP address indicated. If the file is corrupted or there are some wrong entries in the file then you can face the issue. I just want to highlight this file because I want to explain that it is possible to block certain websites. Check that windows websites are not mentioned in this file. The hosts file is consulted each time you connect to a website, much like a directory of addresses. If the site is listed in the list of hosts file, access is blocked if the address is 127.0.0.1. By cons, if not found in the file, your provider (ISP) which connects with the IP address of the site requested. Have you checked the same with other browser that whether you are able to open this site or not. If yes then the issue is with the web browser. Try to
re-install the same.

[DeMario]

If any of your web browser is not able to open the site then there can be a spyware in your system. You will need to scan your system for the same. Run a full system scan under safe mode and check for the infections. There are some possibilities of incompatibility in the web browser. In fact, Internet Explorer 8 has two rendering engines pages the first is new engine which is more compatible with the latest web standards and the other one is the old engine which is from IE7. Both of them makes the web browser to work more efficiently on internet and you get freedom to browse number of web pages. Some sites may not be compatible due to change in the standard or may be under construction. Do you face the issue only with Internet Explorer. If yes then it is better that you must re-install this thing back again or switch to any other web browser. In the new version of Internet Explorer they are new module users which cause the poor display of some web pages. Besides this glitches there are other more abnormalities that may occur. Some of them are like links that refuse to respond when you click on them or they crash the script or the browser. There is nothing can be done here except waiting here for some new updates that might be released by Microsoft to fix this problem. You can try using a older version of the web browser that can help you out in a much better way or some other alternative like Opera, Safari. One thing we usually forget is Flash and Silver-light updates for the browser. This are needed stuff of the browser to display some new standards of the web page. In order to prevent the malfunctions which I had mentioned above the user can easily ironed the old engine which is used in Internet Explorer without changing the web browser. Or else you does not have any other way to switch to some better browser that you can see right now on internet. Some like Safari are too out now for Windows due to wide demand.

[Eber]

You can try to run the web browser on the Compatibility mode of Windows. I am quiet happy with this feature interpreted in Windows 7. The same stuff is also added in the web browser also. You just need to click on the icon Internet Explorer Compatibility View. By clicking on that you can then see the the page which is not working properly. The same is located at the end of the address bar when the page displayed does not contain any specific instructions specifying that it is designed Internet Explorer. The other thing is that you can try to fix out the ipconfig thing. This can be done with command prompt. Click on Start > Run and then type cmd. There type the command ipconfig/release and then you will get some message on the indication for the successful passing of command. The other command then is ipconfig/renew. Once done check your internet settings and the open the page back again. I have some very basic settings that can help you to fix the issue out. For that run the web browser and then click on the Tools menu. Then after that click on the Display Settings compatibility. In that you can type the website name which you are not able to access. You can also address the browser version which it is not supporting. Then refresh your web page and the browser uses his old engine to replicate the page on the screen. This works most of the time and if that does not work then I will recommend you to check your internet settings. There may be loose in the connection or timeout issue which you check via cmd ping command. I will recommend you to use the Internet Explorer 7compatible mode in that and then see whether it works or not. It works in my case when I try to access some old websites.

[Elbanco]

It is not possible that the site can be down or not working. There can be some issue with your system only. The host file is corrupted or some spyware is trying redirect your site. It is possible to modify the host file in your system. If you want you can prohibit access to certain web sites which you do not want to see. The other alternative to host file is to accelerate access of certain web sites that you prefer to visit regularly and whose IP you know. Try to configure this file by typing host in My Computer. Open My Computer and press Ctrl + F. It will pop out the search box. Type host and click on search. A txt type file will be displayed on the screen which you can edit by right clicking on that and choose notepad. In that ensure that no sites are mentioned. You can also run system restore to revert back your old settings in case if you face much more issue in your system. The best way only for that is to re-install the web browser. Try to use a proxy server just to ensure that you are able to access the website. If you are able to access the same via a proxy server then that means that site is blocked by the host file and that can be done via some spyware application. Try to restore the host file of Windows. You can possibly restore that by manually editing it or by downloading the same file from other working computer. I am attaching a fix for that. I found this on the Microsoft Website. This will simply reset the host file and whatever changes made in the file is being restored. The application is easy to configure and run. Just download the same from the attachment and then run the file. It is small 600kb file you can also download the same from the official site of Microsoft. The host file is mostly corrupted which cause such issue.

[Eleeazar]

It is also possible to manually reset the host file of Windows. This can be the first solution and the other way is checking the compatibility settings of your default web browser. For manually fixing the host file you have click on start and then click on run. Then in the run box type %systemroot% \system32\drivers\etc. Click on ok. There is a bit different procedure for opening the same in Windows 7 64 bit operating system. Click on Start and then click on Run. In the box type %systemroot% \SysWOW64\drivers\etc. In this right click on the host file and then rename the same with hosts.bak file. Then you will have to create a new host file here. For that right click in the blank space and then choose new text document. In the box type host and then click on enter. Now in that you have to type the name host that you must not forget. Just save the file and exit My computer. Restart your system and then check back again. This time your web browser must be able to display the windows website. If still not then the issue can be related to the scripting of your web browser. This must work smoothly. In command prompt ping microsoft site by : ping www.microsoft.com -t and check that your get respond from your server. Your DNS can also be responsible for this. Try to use some other DNS server. Try using a open dns for that. The one which I know is dydns. This is a free service and here you just need to create your own account and you get access to open dns for faster accessing the websites. Be careful though, if your hosts file becomes large, it may be a problem with the service ClientDNS of Windows that would duplicate. This puts a svchost process to 99% in your Task Manager and result in slow performance of your system.