Phone support tech took remote control (using Firefox) and found that (a) the original IE9 security settings were wrong (he went into Internet Options, each of the 4 security zones and chose Custom Setting then Reset), and (2) while I was troubleshooting I had tried using a proxy server in the IE9 LAN options, so he cleared that (it was already deselected after that test hadn't changed anything, but he further went ahead and put spaces into the IP and port fields).
Brand new Vostro 3450 with Win 7 Pro SP1, comes with IE9 ... which connect to anything at all! Not internet sites, not intranet sites ... the network Explorer works, so I grabbed Firefox 4.01 (using a different machine) and put it on a network server, then pulled from that server onto the Vostro - FF installed faultlessly and connects immediately. So, how do I figure out why IE9 won't connect?  My apologies that this is probably a trivial question, but I'm a Linux guy, so this Windows stuff is fairly obscure to me. I ran the "troubleshooter" and it said it couldn't help. I can't run Windows Update (needs IE). I don't see anything informative in the Event log (I see *results* of IE not connecting, but not *causes*). I've tried turning the Windows Firewall off, I've tried disabling the Dell-supplied TrendMicro plugin in IE - all to no avail. TIA,   Wayne
IE9 can't see network, but Firefox can .. settings help?