32 bit programs can't access Internet in Windows 7 64 bit

Question

I recently got a new ASUS laptop with Windows 7 Home Premium pre-installed. It worked OK for a while but a couple of days ago, suddenly I couldn't access the Internet any more. After narrowing down the problem, I've reached the conclusion that what's happened is that 32 bit programs are suddenly not able to use the Internet, but 64 bit applications work just fine.

Examples of programs that DON'T work any more: Google chrome Firefox Internet Explorer 8 World of Warcraft

Examples of programs that DO work: Internet Explorer 8 (64 bit) ping (command line) nslookup (command line) ftp (command line)

I'm pretty sure that those command line apps are 64 bit native.

A re-install of Windows using the recovery partition on the laptop did fix the problem temporarily, but now it's back again. And I seem to be stuck between a rock and a hard place getting someone to take the responsibility for this; the vendor says to talk to ASUS, ASUS says it's a software issue, and Microsoft doesn't give support on OEM licenses...

Does anyone know how to solve this issue?

Answer 1

Quite an odd problem that you've run into!

I would start off by checking your Windows Firewall settings (or any third-party application you are using) to make sure that you haven't somehow blocked access to applications living in Program Files (x86) where your 32-bit apps are stored.

An easy way of checking whether it's your firewall is simply disabling it for a few minutes to check whether you regain internet access.

Tell us how the issue evolves!!