I just wiped my old laptop and reformatted it with windows xp. My computer will not connect to the internet. I ran a diognostic and it shows that my Internet Explorer Web Proxy has not been configured. How do I fix this?

You don't normally need to configure that, unless on a corporate network that uses a proxy. How are you trying to connect?

More than likely you need to install the device driver for you network card and wirelsss (if you have one).

What does Device Manager show you as far as devices with yellow marks by them?

Open Device Manager - (Control Panel, System, Hardware tab, Device Manager)