internet connect problem with Win 2000 Professional

I hope your computer does not have a hard-coded TCP/IP address. It should be set to 'Use DHCP to acquire address automatically'
The problem sounds like DNS.
My opinion is also that you should allow DNS to be automatic. IF you have hard-coded address(es) for your DNS then it would work fine at your place but (I don't know why) might not at your friend's house.
Also, if you did an 'Add' for gateway address (for your router), when you are at the other house you may need to remove that gateway address and leave it blank OR put in the actual address of your friend's router.
In any case, I believe DNS is at the heart of the problem you present.

Yes i believe it could be a DNS problem. When I am away from home and do an "ipconfig /all" it tells me that the DNS server is 0.0.0.0   I'm pretty sure that all settings are set for automatic. I don't have any experience with DNS problems. I have another laptop that works great at the away from home network, maybe i could get the DNS settings from it and hard-code them into the other laptop. Do you think that might work? Any other suggestions? Thanks again for your help

I agree.
Sometimes here at the campus where I provide support it IS (apparently) necessary to add specific address(es) for DNS so it is certainly worth a try. You seem to be well equipped for solving the problem now.