Vista Died Today

All of the sudden Vista just broke. I can't connect to the internet. Initially, the DHCP client just refused to start. I resolved that problem by granting some permissions and setting a registry key, but I still can't use the internet.

Well, that's not exactly true... I can connect to any machine by IP only. All name lookup queries fail (even those in hosts file like localhost or other computers on the internal network won't resolve). DNS service is running, DHCP service is running, etc. When I try to resolve the problem, Vista tells me it found an error it can't resolve.

 Any networking gurus have any idea what's going on? This issue blows.

8 Comments

  • Sorry, I don't have a solution for you. But I'm curious - are you on a Active Directory domain? If so, does your domain roll out AD policies?

    Our QA guys have been having similar problems, starting with the DHCP client service issue. Even MS support hasn't been able to help them.

  • Nope. I'm just at home right now. That's not good. This issue really sucks. Been on it for 5-6 hours now without progress. Something deep in the core is broken. I noticed that some service called "TCP/IP Registry Compatibility Service" is failing because of a file not found, but that's supposed to be for legacy support. So theoretically that shouldn't be the culprate...

    What makes the issue worst is that I can't even restore a previous system config because shadow copy requires machine name resolution, which is all f*cked up.

  • No luck with PSS. Next tier is supposed to call me back tomorrow... but I'm assuming that will end the same way.

  • And you can connect fine through the same ADSL-router using XP or such?

  • I would try using system restore to roll back in time, it works well on vista. Its better to try that first rather than start fiddling.

    (It also gives you clues about the sequence of changes to your system)

  • I had a similar issue.... what I discovered to get back my network connectivity... old school... cmd prompt... ipconfig /renew and that solved 30 minutes of the inability to not be able to access network... None of the diagnose / troubleshooting prompts from Vista worked... the problem occurs when switching wireless access points or changing network config properties...Thats at least what I did to finally get network connectivity on a dhcp connection when Vista suddenly decided there was network errors...

  • Unfortunately, I can't roll back. Naming resolution is jacked up on the machine, and the rollbacks use network paths. Since the machine can't resolve it's own name, shadow copy services fail.

    Interestingly, I can access the internet fine from within a VM running on the machine, but not from the machine itself.

  • Same thing happened to me. I have two identical Vista machines, both connected to the same home router connected to cable modem. One morning last week one of the Vista machines suddenly won't connect to the internet. ipconfig/renew and so one makes no difference.

    Then I notice th DHCP Client won't start. Following a tip I set the permissions in the registery for dhcp and tcpip and now DHCP Client starts. The machine still can't connect to the internet, though. The other machine running Vista is connecting to the same LAN just fine. It is very frustrating.

    I can't roll back because I've discovered my registry backups have not been working, probably related to the same issue that is stopping my internet.

    Can anyone tell me what is going on?

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