Says cannot connect - working offline

When using IE and Comcast.com as my internet service provider, I have recently not been able to access by clicking on the IE icon. I get the message "cannot connect because you are off-line." I found the problem; a disconnected wireless router. I reconnected, got good response for a while but now the same message keeps coming up.

I tried to connect using Googles Chrome, no problem at all. So unless there is a compelling reason to abandon Google, then I will no longer use IE. I have repeatedly also gone into the FILE menu and clicked the off-line check mark. I have no idea why it gets turned back altered.

I have recently heard that Comcast is no longer supporting IE. That is strange because Comcast is in part owned by Microsoft. Or maybe that is not so strange at all.

Any comments are appreciated but I have made

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.