GrofLuigi

Can this help? GL

Sometimes these things leave drivers and other stuff behind deinstallation. Shouldn't be interfering, but... Also, the antivirus. Most of them, even if "realtime scanning" is disabled, still have driver components that interfere. I have seen it. Nirsoft utilities look like viruses to most of them and are detected even if antivirus is disabled. For ultimate troubleshooting try Process Monitor. GL

Really strange, it shouldn't be doing this. All bases are covered: Antivirus > disabled (verify again?) .Net > installed (check again? Install 2.0 sp2? uninstall 3 if you can?) Source > looks good (again recheck for corruption; WIN51, WIN51IP & WIN51IP.SP3 should be text files containing only the word "Windows" without quotes) Last Session > looks good Nlite installation > check? GL

Why do you say this? I think it's the other way around, DOTNETFX and VALUEADD are present on MS CDs. Which editions, that's a different matter. GL

You're quite welcome. There are several things you could have done, maybe changed the Start type of some service, removed drivers and/or Windows features and/or hardware support, but... Most probably it's by design. GL *EDIT: by design of Windows!

Search the forum some more, I remember there were similar questions about this issue. What you can do right now: In REGEDIT, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dhcp Delete netbios from DependOnService. Carefully! (or is it netbt, I have deleted it on mine ; just make sure there are Tcpip Afd in there) or Go to device manager (once there, set "show hidden devices" from the menu), go to "non plug and play drivers", it's there -> "netbios over tcp". Invoke its properties and on the "Driver" tab check if it's started; start type is "System" on mine. If you have nlited it away, first solution should work; second not. If you have any problems, report. GL

Value I haven't seen documented anywhere (except some Japanese site): In "My Network Places" to show "Add Network Place", "Network Setup Wizard" and "Wireless Network Setup Wizard": REGEDIT4 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced] "ShowWizardsTEST"=dword:1 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced] "ShowWizardsTEST"=dword:1 If the value is 0 or not present, the wizards are not shown. Takes effect immediately, just press F5 to refresh. Works on XP post-SP2, doesn't work on Server2003, I think I saw it on Vista (haven't stayed long enough to verify). GL

Thanks to submix8c I found an interesting tool and comparison. Haven't tried anything yet. [ravings of an oldtimer]In the time of Amiga, there were many more tools of this kind... And all of them free... [/ravings of an oldtimer] GL

That's the least of the problems... There are not enough gigabytes on this forum to start listing all the things that annoy me in Vista. Maybe another time, another place. And what's the point anyway... I don't want to persuade anyone, it's not like I'll gain anythining. I just don't want it anywhere near me. GL

I guess something like this? I'm looking for freeware solution too (my laptop doesn't have drive LED). GL

I investigated more and it turns out it was one of the settings after all. "Shutdown Wake-On-Lan". If disabled, problem reappears. I guess I missed it in my initial testing, and in safe mode I was overjoyous and didn't change a thing for several reboots. But I don't like to leave things unfinished, so I investigated one setting by one (toggle one, return the previous one, reboot). There is also another setting, "Wake-On-Lan-Capabilities", which doesn't affect the problem. On another note, I tried and it didn't go. It was like to be with nagging, annoying, controlling and useless wife (no offense to the ladies). So I filed for divorce by typing format F: GL * Edit: Thanks again to all who responded, and it seems many of you were right in a way (something wrong in BIOS, something not right about the driver, 64bit...) I hope this thread might help someone in the future... I know it was driving me mad for quite some time.

Agent is still alive and well. GL

(...with the highest-imaginable-pitched auntie voice:) OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! IT WORKS! You are the coolest ! :thumbup How the hell did you know that?! You must have known it, you repeated it twice. Oh come on, tell us... hello: ...Now I'm gonna start bombarding you guys with Vista questions. GL

It was designed for Vista actually. Bought without OS. GL

I'm afraid I won't be very helpful, but I don't think it's (easily) possible. Think abot it this way: What happens if you start two copy operations (that invoke two same dialogs)? Are the dialogs at the exact same pixel position? I think not (but I'm not 100% sure). But I've seen many popups of the same class appear slightly below the previous, until they reach the bottom of the screen, when they start over at the top. It must be intentional (so you see there are more of them). Some other dialogs appear at the dead center (horizontal/vertical) of the screen, so they depend on your chosen resolution. The hard way: disasemble Windows and rewrite the routines or find the coordinates if they exist and hardcode them. And finally, I might be completely wrong. Only those who wrote Windows know that for sure . GL

ATI programmers know what they're doing. It's the way of the future. You are backwards. Your brain should be washed. Sounds familiar? Oops, it slipped... Now, seriously, the last time I had business with ATI cards, the driver and CC were separate packages and there were separate entries in add/remove. Have you checked there? (I think alrichdesa also suggests that). But it was a looong time ago, maybe they changed it. GL

I'll try loading defaults, but I would really hate to go back to older BIOS... I'll wait for now. GL

Update: Installed driver from laptop manufacturer - no change. It's just older version of Realtek's driver. Removed all third party drivers and tried just with Vista's inbuilt driver. Same behavior (that's why I asked here in the first place). If I do shut down, everything's fine. With reboot, installs another instance and creates network connection # 2. During that session, it works. If I perform another reboot, doesn't work. Says 'network cable unplugged'. If I start the troubleshooter, it doesn't believe I've plugged the cable. Says something like: plug the cable again. I'm still refraining from cursing Vista, but I'm on the edge... I don't think anything is wrong with the hardware, because I can reboot as much as I want with XP. And it has worked for months. LAN, Internet, no problem ever. GL

Have you tried this? As I said, I don't see why it shouldn't work. GL

It's a laptop, there's not much to change in BIOS. It's the latest BIOS, btw. I've toggled ALL options on the driver's advanced tab (one at a time + in groups*) as well as 'allow windows to turn this device off to save power' on the last tab). No change. Thank you all for your answers, you reminded me that what I haven't tried yet is the laptop manufacturer's driver (because it's from 2007). I abandoned their drivers altogether because for the wireless it offered me Intel driver, while the card is realtek (found from the hardware ID). I'll try it anyway, maybe there is some customization indeed. I'll report soon. And it does change the hardware ID, that's why I posted them. * "groups" = power management; Wake on Lan; offload; speed/duplex GL

Device ID: PCIVEN_10EC&DEV_8136&SUBSYS_11361734&REV_02 - Normal PCIVEN_10EC&DEV_8136&SUBSYS_813610EC&REV_02 - After Vista has done its thing with it In the realtek's driver inf, 1st is marked as FSC (correctly). Second, I think, is the generic entry for all devices. SPDIF - I installed Realtek's (again) audio driver and it shuts the red light down. Like in XP. Like it should be. GL There's not much to tell, XP works. That is the driver. The only other difference is 64bit vs 32bit. GL

I'm really trying hard to like Vista. Really. Situation: Laptop with XP 32bit on it, chugging happily for quite some time. Let's try Vista on it. Make another partition, two totally independent installs. The newcomer is Vista home premium SP1, 64bit, not vlited. Downloaded and installed all available windows updates. All drivers install successfully. So, what's the problem? As far as my troubleshooting skills go, Vista doesn't know how to shut down (electrically) the network card. It's this one (RTL8102E). Why do I think so? If I reboot FROM Vista to either XP or Vista, the card isn't recognized and Windows installs another driver for it. OK, big deal. Let it. But afterwards it still says "network cable unplugged" (and it's plugged, believe me) in Vista or "this device could not start" in XP. If I reboot another time, still no luck. XP can reboot all the time and has no problems. Vista can shutdown, sleep or hibernate, but not reboot. If I never use the reboot function, just shut down and power up with the power button, all is fine. Microsoft's driver included in Vista doesn't work. Realtek's XP driver too (in Vista; works in XP). Another thing I noticed it doesn't shut down the SPDIF output (combo jack on the front for headphones, red light freaked me out ). Sooo... Can I teach it somehow to behave? Any method is acceptable. GL

From what I found in the (brief) search, it has Intel chipset. I don't see why Intel Matrix wouldn't work. Integrated with Nlite or otherwise, of course. GL

1 2 3 There's got to be something in there for you. I bet on 3. GL

Separate process has some side effects. I haven't hit that bug behavior, but I'm not running x64. GL