help with internet connection settings

Hey all.

I was using EMule, as I have been for a year or so, and I did a couple of things that have somehow damaged my internet connection.

I read that the LowID was often a result of the XP firewall. So I went to my internet connection and turned off the security firewall for that connection (ADSL). I was just checking to see if it was faster. In no time, I got bombarded with those messenger pop-ups that, after closing a few hundred, I got the system will now restart thing.

So when the PC restarted, I put the firewall back up. Remember it is the one for the connection, not a third party firewall.

Then I went back into Emule and I was still able to connect, but I got a message that I would have better results on a different TCP port. So I changed the port number. Then I had to click on the option "Open these ports on internal XP firewall"

Then I got the windows message, "C:\program...attempting to view or change nternet protection settings...."

Then believe it or not, I clicked yes. I just have been fairly lucky with the PC up to now, so I figured it couldn't do too much damage.

Well,...

It didn't do anying for speed in Emule, and later I switched it back to defaults. But my connection to internet changed. Now when I connnect, it's okay. Emule starts to buzz with serveractivity, but then it never starts to actually download.
And after a while, If i open a brower window, all pages come up dead as though the connection were dead.

I figure sth got changed in the connection settings. I uninstalled and deleted all of emule.

Then I set up a new connection to internet. And installed a clean emule. But it's the same problem. No files are downloading, and after a while, i get dead pages in the browser. I think sth bigger than the connection has changed.

What should I do to restore this?
Re-install TCP/IP?

Any thoughts?

Thanks
Wengang

Mmm, dunno, I know it's a long shot, but try installing XPSP2 and see if that fixes any problems. You obviously need it by the sounds of it, because it seems as though you havn't installed the blaster patch yet.

yeah, you're right.

I installed sth a few weeks ago that crashed xp and couldn't boot, so i started over, and since then I've only been installing software as i need it. So I had no antivirus, no firewall, no patches, no service pack.

I guess I'll make the rounds.

I went to trend and did an onine scan. found a mal.??? worm and a virus named backdoor bot or sth like that. removed those

then i d/l spybot and deleted some cookies and registry entries
this morning it seemed to be back to normal

thanks.