I began the day with a Vista laptop that wouldn't connect to my LAN or
the Internet. What was odd is the network icon in the system tray
wouldn't respond when I attempted to check the network status. And the
Windows Security Center reported my firewall wasn't on, and I had no
anti-virus software. A further check showed the firewall was off, but
anti-virus was working. Something was seriously wrong.
My first inclination was to ask myself what changed. Well, last night I
did download and install the new VMware Server 2. And it was Microsoft
Tuesday yesterday and two patches would have been applied over night. So
I uninstalled VMware Server, but no change.
A quick check to the Windows system logs showed that the Network List
Service was failing to start, and manually restarting it got the same
failed result. The log message was "The Network List Service terminated
with an error: Insufficient system resources exist to complete the
requested services". Interestingly though, I could tether my Windows
Mobile 6 phone and connect to the Internet via EVDO, so some networking
stuff was working. I at least had enough to get online and start digging
around.
Turns out, I'm not the only one. Microsoft TechNet has a thread full of
users and IT support people reporting the same symptoms, beginning
October 26, and they were getting mighty testy that Microsoft hadn't
even been able to reproduce the problem or find the cause. Some users
were even thinking the problem might be related to a thread going back
as far as February but I didn't chase that lead. One other common report
though, many users reported installing or using AIM 6.5. Some thought
installing AIM 6.5 with Vista's User Account Control turned off might be
part of the scenario.
Two of the three remedies suggested by users weren't palpable to me;
reinstall Vista, or add "NT Authority/Local Service" to the
Administrators group permissions (a big security risk). Fortunately for
me, the third option of uninstalling AIM worked. The network is back,
wireless is working, and Network List Service starts fine. Security
Center still thinks there's no anti-virus software running but it's
fine. Others on the list weren't so lucky and are still struggling to
find a solution. The version of AIM I was running was AIM 6.5.5.2, btw.
If you run into the same problem, try the above and/or check the forum
link above in case more progress has been made. Hopefully this blog post
has been downloaded to your blog reader beforehand, making this easier
to diagnose without a network connection.
--
priji
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