"Unidentified Network" reveals more problems...

[VivaGabe]

Long time lurker, first time poster..

I had comcast installed yesterday. Good speed compared to AT&T I had prior.

I turned on the computer today and couldn't connect to the Internet. I noticed I had a yellow triangle with an exclamation mark over the little Internet logo on the bottom right of the desktop. I read online that uninstalling the NIC and rebooting could sometimes fix it. After trying a few other things, I decided to try that. That's when I ran into another problem...

Went into device manager and clicked uninstall on my NIC (nvidia nforce). The uninstall bar came up, but nothing happened. I waited 20 minutes hoping to return to "uninstalled complete", but no such luck. Seems that doing anything to the NIC causes explorer.exe to lock up. Same results in safe mode.
Any ideas?

Also, I don't have Internet access (except for my phone, which I am using to post this).
I am using windows 7.

 

[RealBeast]

What is your Windows 7 version (and hopefully won't reply Home Premium, as it lacks some handy tools)?

If you have an "unidentified network" the problem is very likely not with your NIC, but is a bug that Windows 7 seems to have occasionally.

In the network control panel do you only see the unidentified network or are there other networks? If only the one, change it to a home network rather than public. If you cannot do that just by clicking on the network icon and change it then you have to change the Windows setting for network security, IF you are using Pro, Ultimate or Enterprise, with the security policy editor, like this:

In the start button search box type: local security policy and then open the one that shows at the top of the start box, click on network list manager policies, double click unidentified network and change it to Location type: private and User permissions: user can change location, apply, then okay. Reboot.

Now open the network control panel and change the public to a home network and check that you have the adapter configured to automatically obtain an IP address from the gateway (network control panel, change adapter settings, right click select properties, highlight Internet Protocol Version 4, Properties button). Now if you do not connect, open the command prompt box and type ipconfig /release and then ipconfig /renew.

If you are using Home Premium you can edit a registry entry to get rid of the unidentified network and start fresh. Use regedit and navigate to this key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\NetworkList\Profiles\<some big hex code>

open the last and look for profiles with the "Description" or "ProfileName" that uses Unidentified network and delete it, then reboot and attempt to setup a new network connection.

 

[tenaciousk]

Sometimes this happens to me, if I open up network control share center. Then click on change adapter settings and just disable and enable it. Usually takes care of it.

 

[Crackadamus]

The exclamation mark icon can mean a couple different things, TS. You're sure it's an unidentified network message and not something relating to a lack of connectivity/bandwidth or anything?

 

[VivaGabe]

Thanks for the replies!

Unfortunately, I have home edition.

I went to that registry address but there was only on file, labeled "(Default)".

Whenever I try to enable after disabling, explorer.exe locks up. The little window that says "enabling..." stays on screen.

 

[RealBeast]

Thanks for the replies!

Unfortunately, I have home edition.

I went to that registry address but there was only on file, labeled "(Default)".

Whenever I try to enable after disabling, explorer.exe locks up. The little window that says "enabling..." stays on screen.

No! I did not say to delete the default key in Profiles, as I instructed, you have to open the hex labeled key under Profiles (the file under Profiles in the registry) and look for the specific entries Description and ProfileName that say "Unidentified Network."

edit: make a system repair disc, just type that into the start button run box and follow the wizard using one CD. Then boot from that CD and see if you can repair.

 

[VivaGabe]

Hmm. It looks like there isn't anything inside profiles.

 

[VivaGabe]

The exclamation mark icon can mean a couple different things, TS. You're sure it's an unidentified network message and not something relating to a lack of connectivity/bandwidth or anything?

In the basic network screen, it shows:
User Pc----Unidentified Network--X--Internet.

 

[eugen666]

Long time lurker, first time poster..

I had comcast installed yesterday. Good speed compared to AT&T I had prior.

I turned on the computer today and couldn't connect to the Internet. I noticed I had a yellow triangle with an exclamation mark over the little Internet logo on the bottom right of the desktop. I read online that uninstalling the NIC and rebooting could sometimes fix it. After trying a few other things, I decided to try that. That's when I ran into another problem...

Went into device manager and clicked uninstall on my NIC (nvidia nforce). The uninstall bar came up, but nothing happened. I waited 20 minutes hoping to return to "uninstalled complete", but no such luck. Seems that doing anything to the NIC causes explorer.exe to lock up. Same results in safe mode.
Any ideas?

Also, I don't have Internet access (except for my phone, which I am using to post this).
I am using windows 7.

I managed to isolate service responsible for this behavior - I noticed that problem is not occuring in the Safe mode. In my case it was Bonjour service (by Apple - comes with QuickTime), so after stopping and disabling that service, I had no more problems, and I really don't need that service running).