Member Avatar for Kraai

I have a client, who received a pc from one of their children. It runs on XP Pro service pack 3. All of a sudden, they have no internet connection. I could see that their router is connected to the internet.

I went out to their house, because I suspected an IP issue, as when I asked them to do an ipconfig, it came out blank, with no ip number, gateway, nothing.

On their pc, I opened Network connections, and there were no LAN icon, nothing, in the folder. I tried to set-up a new connection, following the wizzard, and when I click on finish at the end, the new connection I was trying to set-up also does not display in the Network Connections.

Ipconfig also shows no results.

The network card installed, the light is on.

This pc was working fine on internet previously.

What am I missing? Any suggestions will be most welcome.

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by hughv

Dani AI

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Quick summary and next‑steps based on the thread: the empty Network Connections view on XP is most often caused by the Network Connections service (Netman) being stopped/missing, corrupted network UI DLLs, Winsock/TCP‑IP corruption, or ghosted (non‑present) adapters. ’s Device Manager check and ’s driver suggestion are the right first ideas; these non‑destructive fixes should be attempted before a repair install. (learn.microsoft.com)

Practical checklist to try before doing a repair install (run commands from an Administrator Command Prompt or Services/Device Manager as noted):

  • Verify required services are present and running: Remote Procedure Call (RPC), Network Connections (Netman), Plug and Play, COM+ Event System. Start them from services.msc if needed. (learn.microsoft.com)

  • Re‑register the network shell DLLs (then reboot): 

regsvr32 netshell.dll
regsvr32 netcfgx.dll
regsvr32 netman.dll

These restore the Network Connections UI in many cases. (learn.microsoft.com)

  • Reset Winsock and the TCP/IP stack (then reboot): 
netsh winsock reset
netsh int ip reset resetlog.txt

These commands rebuild the Winsock catalog and restore TCP/IP registry defaults. ()

Show and remove ghosted adapters (old/hidden NIC entries can block proper binding): 

set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1
start devmgmt.msc

In Device Manager choose View → Show hidden devices, uninstall any greyed/duplicate network adapters and reboot. (learn.microsoft.com)

If those steps fail: run System File Checker (sfc /scannow) — it may prompt for the original XP media (matching the installed service pack) — or proceed with a repair install as planned. Use a separate PC/USB stick to download the correct NIC driver (identify the NIC by hardware IDs in Device Manager) before reinstalling; back up the registry/System Restore first. (support.microsoft.com)

Recommended Answers

All 4 Replies

Member Avatar for barryt

hello
what does your network adapter say in divice manager
barry

Member Avatar for starfireone

Have you tried to re install the NIC driver or an updated one? Also have you checked the event log for any network related errors?

Member Avatar for Kraai

Sorry, I was a bit off line myself and can only read here now.
I asked the client to get their windows xp cd, (they still searching for it, he he....) as it seems that there is a conflict in device manager with an unknown device. As soon as they can produce their cd, I will do a repair install and see what happens, and post back here. The thing is, as there is no network connection icon to fine tune, I cannot connect their pc to the internet to try to update the "unknown device driver"

Member Avatar for hughv

Sorry, I was a bit off line myself and can only read here now.
I asked the client to get their windows xp cd, (they still searching for it, he he....) as it seems that there is a conflict in device manager with an unknown device. As soon as they can produce their cd, I will do a repair install and see what happens, and post back here. The thing is, as there is no network connection icon to fine tune, I cannot connect their pc to the internet to try to update the "unknown device driver"

Wow. It's too bad they don't make a device that allows you to transfer files from one (Connected) computer to one that's not. If they did, you could download the needed driver to this device, then transfer it to the unconnected computer.:)

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