"TCP/IP Not Installed Properly"

[everdred12a]

Okay, here's the deal. Everytime I run my virus scan programs on my laptop (I use Spybot, Ad-Aware, and AVG Free), when everything is said and done, I'm unable to get online. I'm not completely sure why, or what it is that's preventing me from doing so. The problem SEEMS to be with AVG, because I was actually online while both Spybot (which I ran first and know is not the problem) and Ad-Aware (could be the problem, as I didn't get online after it finished) were running. During the AVG scan, however, I couldn't get online. After the scan, I still couldn't, and I got the usual Firefox "cannot load page" screen.

However, I play an MMORPG called Flyff, and when I started to run it, it gave me an error message stating "TCP/IP Not Installed Properly". I have NO IDEA what that means. I know that I could just go back and use system restore to fix it (I'd just format my hard drive if I could, but Dell is just a bunch of Nazi's who don't want you to have an Windows XP OS disk >.> ), but I got rid of quite a few viruses by scanning, and I feel like System Restore might also restore those viruses.

So basically, I'm asking if anyone could help me:
A) Get back online without using System Restore.
B) Possibly recommend an anti-virus software that won't annihilate my internet and is free.

Any help is appreciated!

[Sync]

Ttry opening the command prompt (either by Run.. 'cmd' or in start>programs>accessories) and type (without quotes):
'netsh int reset a' then press Enter, you'll probably need a restart right after that.

Another option is unchecking the box for TCP/IP in the Networking properties of your Local Area Connection or the dialup connection you have, then restarting and re-adding the check to TCP/IP. With that if you're lucky you wont need a Windows CD but it's possible that you will, though if neither of those fixes work you'll likely need a reinstall of Windows as TCP/IP is technically "unremovable" in XP now, unlike Win9x or 2k.
good luck with that.

[Mithrandir]

You may wanna post about it on the AVG boards to see if anyone else has ever had that issue. There might be some other weird setting you need to flip.