Internet Stops Working After an Infection

Whoever writes malicious programs really knows their way around Windows. I am often quite surprised at little known registry entries and other secrets that are disabled when a malicious program hits.

The most common thing I see is when malicious software stops the internet from working, even after you have removed the infection. You will either continuously be trying to connect or your connection will say it has “limited access”. The malicious software will most likely have disabled your DHCP services, luckily it is very easy to fix.

I won’t go into details about what DHCP does, if you are interested, read What is DHCP? Why is it used?.

Now to get your internet connection working again, follow these instructions:

Click Start > Run: Type services.msc and hit OK:

Look for an entry called DHCP client. If it does not say “Started”, right click DHCP client and select start.

Double click DHCP client and next to startup type, select Automatic. Click Ok. This will ensure DHCP Client is started whenever you start your computer.

Your internet should now be working again. If this doesn’t work, there is a problem elsewhere so please leave a comment and I’ll see what I can do.

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