Issues, Workarounds & Localization

I'm not sure whats happened but I wanted to find out if anyone else had this problem. When the launcher is patching or doing anything to use bandwidth, I cannot do anything related to internet usage. This includes teamspeak,skype, firefox,google chrome, internet explorer. I thought maybe it was a firewall thing but I've literally disabled everything and still can't figure it out.
Edit:
Ok after further tinkering, I tried disabling my connection to my network through the control panel. I'm using windows xp. I did this, tried to reenable it and it said it failed. I went to device manager, It says my ethernet device is working properly. I closed the launcher, connected to my router. Reopened the launcher, It then wouldn't let me connect to my router. It seems this might be some weird sort of interference with my hardware/software. I wanted to find out the extent to which I can no longer use any sort of connectivity means and it would seem that it pretty much stops everything from working.