hi liesbeth,
Does this computer have antivirus and antimalware protection on it? I googled iecont.dll and it is either needing to have .Net Framework installed via Windows Updates or a possible virus. When you attempt to connect, is there an error or do you just get 'Page Cannot be Displayed in Internet Explorer?

Pam

what windows are you using xp or vista and if xp did you update to sp3?
Have you by any chance recently used any type of registry cleaner?

Add to raven's question about the operating system -- a couple of results that I saw showed that Windows 2000 Pro involved the two files.

I also wonder do you have a firewall and have you tried dropping your firewall and trying to get your pc to connect, it could be something changed in your settings and your firewall is blocking something.

Also have you done all your windows updates for your pc? the references I have seen to the dll files you mentioned are all very very old and seem to have been fixed by windows updates, also most were involving Ie6 which version of IE do you have?

The reason I ask about sp3 is that it has been found that people who did the sp3 update are now unable to get their updates to .net. There have been some work arounds for that issue. Article about that for anyone interested.
XP Service Pack 3 blocks .NET security patches
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/923100

and yet another question have you done all your java updates on that pc? and do you also have firefox browser?

from what I have read those missing dll files should not be keeping you from connecting, they seem to be related to being able to click on links in webpages and having it take you to the appropriate pages.
So I think you have 2 different problems, one the connect issue and 2 the dll problem.

go to your event viewer Start> control panel> administrative tools> event viewer > there you will see 3 options in the left list double click each to open their logs look in each one to see if you have any red or yellow flags there, if you do you can hilight each one of those by clicking it then double click to open the info box on each item, look for any thing that says what is happening and what is causing it and any error codes.

Hi guys, thsnks for your replies. Feeling a bit down this morning, I don't really understand what I'm trying to do even though you are all so helpful.
So here's the answers to some of the questions:

pkponder:
Internet Explorer says :Page cannot be displayed
We have always used AVG as antivirus and I have always updated this. (we had the dodgy download as well couple of weeks ago but i fixed that with the fix tool AVG provided)
We did not have the firewall on, I did not even know we had it. Anyway, i found it and now we will use it.
I don't know what antimalware is, I thought AVG was enough.

Ravencajun:
We use XP and I don't know if we updated to sp3?
How can I check if we have all java updates?
I don't know if we have a firefox browser because I don't know what it is.
I have looked in the event viewer but that only shows events till march 2007? Plenty error codes there.
I don't know if I have used a registry cleaner, I don't know what it is.
We did do windows updates when they came up.

Ok so I'm probably making you shake your heads, I'm way out of my league here and I know it. But he who tries might get somewhere right?

See if you can do this exercise below let us know:

Click Start/ click Programs/ click Accessories/ click System Tools/ click System Restore. (Click the Restore My Computer to an earlier time.)

Then:

Try to connect to the internet when the computer finishes restoring, try to go here first (WWW.GOOGLE.COM) Type it into the address bar.

Hi Zep516, we've tried to do the system restore but it just doesn't do the last step so we haven't been able to do it.
I think we will go back to the shop because it seems we are really at a dead end. Apart from not being able to access the internet, I also can't burn my photo's to a disc anymore because it says there is no disc drive connected. More problems!!! Aaargh. When I ran the AVG in the safe mode it did pick up a trojan horse, could that be causing this?

"We use XP and I don't know if we updated to sp3?" On the Windows screen at an open place in the bar at the bottom, right click. Select Task Manager, then Help at the top of the dialog box, then select About Task Manager. On the second line it should show the Service Pack (mine is 2) that is installed. If you have SP3 installed there were/are many problems associated with it. Getting rid of it may be another story.

A Trojan horse could cause a # of issues and there may be more infected files AVG isn't seeing + you appear to have missing dll files and windows isn't seeing the disc drive and a restore problem and you can't connect, so every stick you grab is the crappy end, there may be other issues we don't even see yet...

Not being able to connect and at least run malware scans is a problem.

Taking it back to shop is probably the best solution, please let us know the results..

Thank you! We do not have SP3 but the service pack 2 as you do. But yeah, we are in over our head here with zep516 describing it well!! Haha, back to the shop it is I think..
I'll let you know what the outcome is. Thanks for your help!

hi,

You can go to this site ..
http://www.fix-all-dll-errors.com/iecont.dll/

as I registered few dll's from this site as it is free...worked in my case :)