Just last week i had to do a clean install after messing up my partitions trying to make room to try out linux (ubuntu 64 bit to be precise).

A week later everything is back, i have firefox like usual, using the internet fine and now have Windows Media Player 11.

Only thing is ive noticed internet explorer isn't working! it doesn't even seem to attampt to start loading a page it just sits there and since wmp runs on the same kind of engine as ie i can't stream video through it.

I have service pack 2 and have even tryed and then uninstalled ie7 because it wasn't working either. Its weird because only the internet software that is embedded deep into xp aren't working i can even ping sites using cmd and it isn't a dns problem as ie doesn't bring up any errors. It just sits there on a blank page (i always use homepage as about:blank for ie to stop any nuisance msn page coming up on the rare occasion i have to use it).

I am considering uninstalling and then reinstalling sp2 before i do another clean install but can't at the moment because even though i have 16mb i have to wait for the slow free member servers of gamespot to send me a 54mb video.