Richc46, sorry, you may have been mislead by the fact that I switched computers. I confused myself because I started talking about a problem with browsers and connectability on my old system, NOT System 7 which is on our new laptop. The problem as stated very briefly was the message that I could not get connected after clicking on the IE icon due to working offline. I was not working offline. The problem went away momentarily and I pulled the FILE menu down and noticed the Offline option checked, so unchecked it. but the messages started coming again, then check physical connection of wireless router may be problem, fixed that, problem message still continued, then went to Google Chrome and haven't had a problem since.
So, Goodbye, Microsoft IE. Sorry to hear that Windows 7 is running so slow for people. It looked like a reasonably good system.