Solved Unusual & Perplexing Page Not Found Behavior

[wither 3]

You might have to touch the keys multiple times during the POST to get them to work. Usually you won't see the appropriate screen immediately but it should come up before Windows starts loading. Usually on the first page of the POST it will tell you the keys, such as Del, to get to the BIOS.

 

[boweasel]

The POST screen - the one with the big blue Dell logo tells me that F2 will take me to setup and F12 to the Boot menu. They do no. I have tried pressing either key once, multiple times, and even tapping (ala F8), but nothing ever happens.

I really think it's a keyboard / processor mismatch kind of a problem.

 

[boweasel]

And as far as the browser goes, the only curious thing is that after I reinstalled the OS I kept going through the Windows Update, to get everything current. Not one time did it ever update Internet Explorer. IE7 was apparently part of the install on my CD. I eventually had to manually go the the MS webpage for IE and download the version of IE8 for 32 bit Vista. In the past the Windows update process has always, at some point, updated my browser.

 

[wither 3]

Whether Vista will automatically upgrade from one version of IE to another depends on how you have the Windows Updater configured. Although the term update is used, I consider going from one complete version to another as an upgrade.

On my Win 7 machine, it was set up such that it didn't ask if you wanted to install all the updates and it automatically upgraded my IE 8 to IE9. I changed the Windows Updater to ask me which updates I want to install because I don't want v9.

You might try reinstalling your keyboard.

 

[boweasel]

Took my friend's tower back to his place and it works perfectly - no 'page not found' or 'server not found'. It was apparently a minute change in the network driver that caused the problems - Realtek RTL8168C was the driver needed, but a Realtek RTL8168, without the 'C' was what had been running. When I'd gone to device manager and asked to update the driver without the C, it said that it could not find a better match than the driver already installed. Very frustrating.

And my friend HAS a Dell USB keyboard and it will now access the BIOS and allow a CD boot.

Bizarre problems, but I'd say they're solved.