How to know if my computer has internet access?

Heres what to do... go to your CONTROL PANEL then
NETWORK AND INTERNET CONNECTIONS then NETWORK CONNECTIONS . (If your in classic view, click on NETWORK CONNECTIONS.)
on your NETWORK CONNECTION you will see there if your LAN/WLAN is connected.
if you want to know if you are connected even without looking in your NETWORK CONNECTION do this steps.

1. in your NETWORK CONNECTIONS, right click your LAN/WLAN.
2. in the menu that will appear, choose PROPERTIES.
3. a windows will popup, below the window you will see two sentences with a blank checkbox in the side that say.

You will need some kind of modem and an internet service provider to access the net of course...

Down in the bottom right corner by you clock on the tool bar you should see an icon that looks like two monitors. If you hover over it you can tell if you're connected or not.

If you don't see that icon there then open up CONTROL PANEL and look for DEVICE MANAGER. Open that and look for NETWORK ADAPTERS. There should be one or two items listed under it. One will be an ethernet adaptor and one will be a wifi (wireless) adapter if you have one. By clicking on them you can see if it is "working properly" or not.

If that is there you do have what's necessary to setup a network. Then you will need to go to NETWORK / network connections and see if the settings are in for connecting to the net. Right CLICK on the icon and click on PROPERTIES. There should be a CLIENT and TCP/IP and Printer and file sharing if you are networking more than one computer at home and wish to share.

Now click on TCP/IP and PROPERTIES. For now make sure "OBTAIN IP ADDRESS AUTOMATICALLY" is selected. For most setups that is all you need. For some you may need to have the actually ip number for the gateway which is the ip number of your router if you have one, or modem if you're not using a router for a home network.

At this point you can right CLICK on the modem icon, the two monitors down by the clock on the tool bar and click "CONNECT TO A NETWORK". You should see your network listed to choose from.

That should get you on the internet. You can check that you are connected by pulling up internet explorer and going to a website like www.google.com.

Make sure your ethernet cable is plugged into your computer and that the modem is turned on if you are able to connect to the internet then it has internet access if nothing happens then it has not, go to device management and check to see if the network adapters are installed if its not showing anything then its either faulty or not installed, you are able to pick up a cheaper ether card from most places that is easy to install. if you have one then you will need to install the correct driver check to what make and model it is and run a search on google to correctly get the drivers from a different computer that has internet access download it and transfer the driver through a usb memory stick and install it on the computer that does not have internet access if it says no adapter detected then your computer does not have access