Mr Blue Sky,. .I had something similar a few weeks ago. I was in the US and using Compuserve as my ISP. I could log on, get e-mail in OE5 but neither reply nor get on the net. . .I tried various things, even “borrowed” the hotels settings but no good.. .Equally funny, I could not check the e-mail on Compuserve!. .I had decided that I would NOT mess with Dell’s settings, but eventually decided to try to reinstall IE and OE. Eventually, I got an error message telling me that Dial Up Adapter was missing.. .I looked at Control Panel, Network, and Installed Components and there it wasn’t!!. .Eventually I got it back in by reinstalling Win ME as Im not suggested (though not in such a long winded manner!!). .So check if Dial Up Adapter is there.. .Good luck!