I'm helping my boss with an HP G72 laptop running Windows 7. I'm connected through wifi to the network but can't connect to any web pages via Google Chrome or Internet Explorer. Chrome error says ERR_NAME_RESOLUTION-FAILED.

I've tried connecting to different networks (his home one won't work, my phone's hotspot didn't either, and neither did an ethernet cable here at work).

Tried setting TCP\IP (ipv4 and ipv6) to automatic. Also tried setting the DNS address as 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 (that's Google's thing, found that solution online. Didn't work.

Ran Malwarebytes and it came up with nothing.

Checked Windows update thing and it said there is an update for something to do with the network adapter, but I can't connect to download it...

Thoughts?

First thing, open up a command window and type Ping www.yahoo.com

You should get an IP address that the machine will ping. If you get that, then DNS is working.

If you get no ping response, then your boss's laptop is probably not getting an IP address. If this is a corporate LAN, and your on Active Directory, you may have to go into the Domain Server and allow them to be on the network. But, the first thing is to see if you can ping, anything.

I do get a reply when I ping. It's online and it says there is internet access, but the internet browsers won't connect to websites, as if those sites are down. (tried google, yahoo, and wikipedia. Doubt they're all down at the same time.)

try accessing a website WITHOUT using the domain name by using the IP address like 107.6.106.82 (which is xkcd)

Beyond that, safe mode w/ networking and any antimalware and firewall software disabled.

I have done that, and it also did not work.

Are you running Web Sense or anything like that?

Can you take the laptop to a coffee shop and surf from there? You need to narrow down if it's the network that is stopping you, or the laptop.

Also, if you are on a Wired Connection make sure to disable the Wireless. Windows wants to prefer to that and if you are not connected up wireless, it can act this way.

The machine doesn't have a virus by chance does it?

Check network settings, specifically, IP address.