Recover Winsock Corruption

Problem:
When you start Internet Explorer or another web browser, you may receive the error message:
"The page cannot be displayed"
and...
When you try to repair the network connection by releasing and renewing the IP address, you receive one of the following error messages:
An error occurred while renewing interface 'Internet': An operation was attempted on something that is not a socket.
or...
An error occurred while renewing interface Local Area Connection: the requested service provider could not be loaded or initialized.

Fix:
Open the command prompt.
Type: netsh winsock reset catalog.
Restart the computer.

Explanation:
The netsh winsock reset catalog command resets the Winsock catalog to the default configuration. This can be useful if a malformed LSP is installed that results in loss of network connectivity.