Hi scruffle-ga,
You have encountered a known issue with Windows 2000, and one that
hopefully can be fixed easily. The appearance (or disappearance) of
these icons is *generally* due to a service that has failed to start
properly. The Local Area Connection icon will not be present if the
Plug and Play service or the Network Connections service has been
stopped. The Make New Connections icon will not be present if the
Remote Procedure Call service has been stopped. There are other
possibilities, including driver conflicts, but since you are able to
connect without problem, it most likely is a service issue. Also, you
indicated the computer was new, which lessens the possibility of a
driver conflict.
To establish whether it is a services issue is fairly easy. You will
need to try to restart the services (directions for that in a moment).
Unfortunately, if after trying all of the suggestions below, the icons
fail to reappear, you will need to resort to the Recovery Console -
basically using Windows Setup disks to Repair the installation.
I just wanted to point that out before we got started. As with any
computer troubleshooting, this may take a bit of back and forth before
it's resolved. Please be aware of that. With a small amount of
patience, I am sure we can get this working to your satisfaction. My
feeling is that the steps below will resolve the issue and you will be
back to enjoying your new computer!
----------------------
Starting the services
----------------------
***In the instructions below, you should be looking for the following
services:
Plug and Play
Network Connections
Remote Procedure Call
1. From Control Panel, open Administrative Tools
2. Open Services
3. Scroll through the list of services until you find the service on
the list. you should see that it is set to Automatic* and that the
service is Started. If not, follow these steps to start it:
4. Right click the service
5. Choose Properties
6. Change the dropdown Startup Type to "Automatic"
7. Click Start to start the service.
*Do this for both Plug and Play and Remote Procedure Call. After these
have been done, locate the Network Connection service, and follow the
above steps, but set it to Manual instead of Automatic. You will also
want to Start it, as you did the others.
Reboot your PC. Check the Network and Dial-Up Connections folder. The
icons should be present. If not, try pressing F5 to refresh the
screen. If this does not resolve the issue, there's a chance that the
network DLL files are not properly registering. To resolve this,
follow the below steps:
----------------------------
Registering the network DLLs
----------------------------
1. Click Start
2. Click Run
3. Type CMD
4. Press Enter
You will now be at what is known as a command prompt. (I have no idea
how much experience you have, so forgive me if I am being too
explicit).
5. Type each line as shown below, pressing the Enter key after each of
the lines:
regsvr32 netshell.dll
regsvr32 netcfgx.dll
regsvr32 netman.dll
6. Type exit and press enter to close the command window.
7. Restart your system.
If the first method (starting the services) failed (i.e. you could not
get a service to Start), try again now that the DLLs have been
registered. If this still does not resolve the issue, please post a
response here. We can then look into the possibility of a driver
conflict and/or the use of the Restore Console.
Details on this missing icon anomaly are contained in Microsoft
Knowledgebase Article Q254631. That article, which contains a full
description of these steps, can be found at:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;Q254631&LN=EN-US
I certainly hope this helps resolve your dilemma!
Thank you for using Google Answers!
Regards,
antivirus-ga |
Clarification of Answer by
antivirus-ga
on
02 Nov 2002 12:48 PST
Hi scruffle-ga,
Wow! Thanks so much for the praise and tip! Very unexpected and very
much appreciated!
You've ruled out one of the steps (a good thing). If you've already
performed a clean reinstall, using the Recovery Console won't be of
help. It simply restores/rebuilds the Windows operating system -
something that a complete reinstall would do much cleaner. However,
don't be discouraged. I am sure we will get to the bottom of this.
Let's try the easiest thing first. This does involved editing the
system registry which can be risky so be sure you follow the steps
below exactly.
1. Click Start | Run
2. Type REGEDIT and press enter
3. There's a menu at the top - select Registry
4. Click Export Registry File
5. Type a name for the file (i.e. backup.reg) and save it. (Make sure
you know where you saved it to, in case you need to restore it).
6. Click Registry again
7. Click Exit
8. Open Notepad (must be Notepad!) (Start | Programs | Accessories |
Notepad)
9. Copy the following lines between the ----- and paste them into
Notepad. Do *NOT* include the dashed lines (-----)
---------------------------------------------
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Interface\{0000010c-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}]
@="IPersist"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Interface\{0000010c-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}\NumMethods]
@="4"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Interface\{0000010c-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}\ProxyStubClsid32]
@="{00000320-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}"
---------------------------------------------
10. Click File | Save and name the file (i.e. network.reg) (Make sure
when you give it a name, that you overwrite the .txt that will
automatically be in the filename box)
11. Locate the saved file. (If it saved properly as a .reg file, it
will have an icon that looks like a piece of paper with a blue cube
made up of cubes in front of it, with some of the blue cube breaking
off, going towards the paper).
12. Double-click the file to execute it. You'll be asked if you want
to add it to the registry. Click Yes.
Reboot the PC and check to see if the icons now appear. If they still
do not appear, continue with the tips below.
The following directions assume that the Remote Procedure Call and
Plug and Play services are still starting automatically as you
indicated. What we'll focus on first is the Network Connection
service.
Open the Services dialog again (Control Panel | Administrative Tools |
Services
Locate and double-click the Network Connection service
There are some tab options for this dialog box. Click the Log On tab.
The settings should be:
Log on as:
Local System Account (checked)
Allow service to interact with desktop (checked)
There's a white box at the bottom of the dialog box. There should be a
profile name listed there (the default is Profile 1). It should say
that that profile is enabled.
If it says that profile is disabled, click once on the profile to
select it and then click the Enable button.
(If you did find that it was disabled and you enabled it, try
restarting the Network Connection service).
Just as an FYI, the Recovery Tab should have everything set to "Take
no action" and the Reset Fail Count set to 0. The Dependencies Tab
should have Remote Procedure Call listed and in the box below that, it
should say No Dependencies and be greyed out.
Once all of these settings have been confirmed, and assuming the
service still doesn't start, then we have to think it must be a
hardware device conflict.
Check the Event Viewer to see if you are getting an error message
logged. This only works if the Event Viewer service is started (which
it is by default). To access Event Viewer:
Open the Control Panel
Select Administrative Tools
Select Event Viewer
Select System Log
You are looking for entries that are preceded by either a yellow
exclamation icon or a red x icon. If you have any of these, please
double click the entry and note the error. If it pertains to one of
the three services (P&P, RPC, or Network Connections), or to
networking in general, post the Event ID and error message it provides
here as that will give valuable clues to the cause. The most important
info is the Event ID.
Second, take a look at Device Manager and see if there are any
hardware conflicts being reported. To access Device Manager:
Open Control Panel
Select System
Click the Hardware tab
Click Device Manager
Locate Network Adapters on the list and click the + sign to expand it.
Does the listed network adapter have either a ?, !, or X icon next to
it? This indicates a problem with the device. Either way, right-click
the network adapter listed.
Select Properties
Confirm that the device is working properly (it will say "This device
is working properly") or if it had one of the icons noted above, it
will tell you why there's an error being reported.
If there's an error being reported, please post that info back here.
If there's no error being reported, and all of the above steps
indicated everything was normal, then we have to assume it is a
hardware issue.
Note the exact name/model of the network adapter and post that here.
Also click the Resources tab in the network adapter's Properties
dialog box and note the interuppt request # that is being used and
post that info back here as well.
To recap,
First try the registry edits given to see if it resolves the issue.
If you still cannot see any icons:
1. Check the Network Connection Services Log On settings
2. If incorrect, correct and retry the service.
3. If they were correct to begin with or the service still will not
start, check the Event Viewer and post the Event ID here.
4. Check Device Manager to see if any conflicts are noted for the
network adapter listings. If so, post the error message here.
5. Post the exact model of the network adapter as it's listed under
Network Adpater in Device Manager.
6. Post the interrupt request # found on the Resources tab of the same
dialog.
All of this info will help narrow down the searching and
troubleshooting. Basically, after the information is collected, we
will see if there are known issues, conflicts with that particular
device, try updating the drivers, and see if a diagnostic utility is
available for the adapter.
In addition to the knowledgebase resource article link I posted in my
original response, I referenced the following:
"Network and Dial-up Connections" Folder Icons Missing
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q269019
Service Does Not Start and Displays "Error 1058"
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q241584
Incorrectly Configured Service Does Not Start
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q227756
Service Does Not Start and an Event ID 3 Message Is Logged
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q268009
Hope you find this helpful. There's never a direct path to
troubleshooting Windows problems, but you do get the chance to learn
lots along the way. Time and patience are the two most important tools
for the Windows toolbox. ;-)
Best of luck and let me know what you discover.
Thanks for using Google Answers!
Regards,
antivirus-ga
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