networking - Why are Microsoft based programs unable to resolve host names?

When I go to Google by IP I get:

When I go to Google by domain name I get:

This is confirmed by Windows Live Messenger:

However, Firefox just works fine:

When I do a DNS lookup I get this result:

C:\Windows\system32>nslookup google.com
Server:  google-public-dns-b.google.com
Address:  8.8.4.4
Non-authoritative answer:
Name:    google.com
Addresses:  74.125.79.104
          74.125.79.99
          74.125.79.147

However, pinging fails by name (but works by IP):

C:\Windows\system32>ping google.com
Ping request could not find host google.com. Please check the name and try again.
C:\Windows\system32>ping 74.125.79.104
Pinging 74.125.79.104 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 74.125.79.104: bytes=32 time=23ms TTL=52
Ping statistics for 74.125.79.104:
    Packets: Sent = 1, Received = 1, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 23ms, Maximum = 23ms, Average = 23ms

These are my settings, which look correct to me:

Wireless LAN adapter Wireless Network Connection 4:
   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . : WIJSMAN
   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) WiFi Link 5100 AGN
   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-16-EA-5E-58-CE
   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
   IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.178(Preferred)
   Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
   Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Friday, June 17, 2011 7:06:49 PM
   Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : Saturday, June 18, 2011 7:07:06 PM
   Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
   DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
   DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 8.8.4.4
   NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

I have tried the following things:

• Disabled any firewalls and virus scanners.


• Reset everything in netsh, winsock, int ip and so on...


• Completely reset the settings of Internet Explorer, including personal settings.


• Started every single service on my computer, to ensure I'm not missing something critical.


• Installed and uninstalled a lot of network-device-tampering programs like VMWare, VirtualBox, ...


• Ran sfc /scannow, to check whether something was corrupted.

I have done a lot of research but have not yet found where Microsoft based programs go wrong while other programs like Firefox, Jing and mIRC go right. Do you have an idea?

Answer

So, I researched half a day for solutions for all the errors I saw occurring. Nothing worked!

As configuration is stored in the registry, I decided to do a rollback. But how? I first looked up what the Failed Control Set registry key was, because fails should be rare...

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Select\Failed

Looking at the contents, this was from a few weeks back but luckily I had exams so I didn't really do a lot of changes in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\*ControlSet* keys. While I did have another wireless card and the Comodo firewall installed back then, I knew in advance that this isn't properly going to work.

A manual compare didn't really do the job so I decided to import the Failed ControlSet into the Current. After booting up I had to remove all network cards and I saw only my wired connection did work perfectly. Again, I went for a lot of troubleshooting but always got the Code 1 error. Removing drivers and completely uninstalling didn't work. So, I went for a nasty trick that I knew worked in the past for another network issue...

I opened up my laptop and removed the wireless card, then I went to remove all really hidden devices. Rebooted to ensure that it was completely gone. Inserted the wireless card back in and suddenly, internet!

Now I can go and compare and transition the changes I did in the past weeks, which is easier... :)