I purchased a Dell Laptop for my wife a few months ago, loaded with Windows Vista.

 

Recently she has been trying to watch videos from YouTube and noticed that they only get a few seconds in before stopping completely. The laptop itself does not freeze up but the videos won't play at all, on any sites. I suggested that she download Quicktime. She started the download and after a few seconds, again, it simply locked up. The laptop was fine, but the download itself seemed frozen, the same as the videos.

 

A few more tests revealed that she is unable to download anything from anywhere. This is not a firewall issue or anything, because the download starts and the transfer information appears on the screen. The "status bar" just never gets beyond a few pixels, regardless of how long we leave it or how small/big the file is.

 

Clearly the two problems are related. Could this be an issue with Vista? Has anyone else experienced this problem?

 

Thanks for any suggestions/advice.

 

Tom