Win7 x64 - little backstory to explain how i got here... This was a vista machine that i upgraded to win7. Everything worked after the upgrade except for hamachi (version 1). I did a reinstall of that and it fixed it, except i had 2 hamachi network interfaces listed in device manager, one of which was showing up as broken (yellow exclamation mark). Since everything was working i left it alone. Fast forward to today - i tried to upgrade hamachi to hamachi 2. Seemed to work ok but i couldn't connect to any peers. Looking into it it said the hamachi adapter was faulty and looking at my network connections there was no hamachi adapter listed. I opened device manager and there was just one hamachi nic listed and it was the broken one. I selected uninstall - checked the box to remove the driver and it uninstalled. I then manually installed another instance of the hamachi network adapter. Hamachi still cant connect to peers - same error msg about the network adapter. Only now, ALL of my network adapters are missing in the network connections folder. And the network status icon in the status tray is showing a red X as though it's not connected, even though this PC is online (i'm connecting to it through RDP). I've already tried rebooting - no effect. So any ideas where all my network connections/adapters went and how to get this all sorted? One more piece of info - if i right click on the network icon in the status tray and select troubleshoot, having another problem, specific adapter - on that screen it then lists 3 network adapters. Tried letting it diagnose all of them but no effect. And if i open the network connections folder and go to help, advanced options, i get an 'unexpected error'

Hi, This issue can occur by incompatible NIC driver or corrupted files. I suggest you try the following steps. 1. Uninstall the NIC driver and reinstall the driver for Windows Vista or Windows 7 in Compatibility Mode. 2. Restart the computer in Safe Mode with Networking and check the result. If there is any error message, please capture and upload it for research. Thanks, Novak

thanks for the reply. I would have responded sooner but for some reason i never get notifications of replies here. Anyhow, I'm hesitant to do this because if i uninstall the NIC from device manager and this does not fix the issue, then i wont have internet access because I wont be able to adjust the settings on the network. If you think this is the best course of action, i'll try it. I was just hoping there was some command i could run that would cause windows to reset the networking or do some sort of diagnostic to find out what the issue is. It just seems odd that there could be a corrupted driver file, and yet my internet/networking still works. thanks

Hi, Usually, the NIC driver will be reinstalled automatically at restart after uninstalling the driver in Device Manager. To avoid unexpected situation or the NIC driver does not reinstall automatically, you can download the latest NIC driver from the manufacturer’s website first. After that, you can uninstall it and reinstall the driver in Compatibility Mode. Thanks, Novak

I think you are misunderstanding my concern. I know windows will normally automatically reinstall the driver. My concern is that no one seems to be sure why i lost all the NIC's in Control Panel\Network and Internet\Network Connections I uninstalled a virtual NIC, and then suddenly all my other NIC's went away (even though my network connection still works). No one seems sure that removing the rest of the nic's in hardware manager is going to fix this problem. What happens if i uninstall, reinstall and the NIC still doesn't show up in network connections? Then my network connection probably wont work since i wont be able to access the settings. I guess what i am asking is how sure you are that reinstalling the remaining NIC's will fix this problem and not make things worse? thanks

I have two physical NIC's in my system. One on board the motherboard and the other an addon card. The on board NIC i had disabled. I decided to re-enable it. It showed up as OK in hardware manager. I then went ahead and uninstalled it, checking the option to delete the driver software. I then rebooted and let windows re-detect and now windows says it's not functioning. Even after i let it both search online for an updated driver and downloaded the driver from the motherboard website. It still shows up as not working now. So i'm really worried that uninstalled and reinstalling my other NIC is going to have the same effect. At which point i will really be screwed since 90% of the work i do with my PC is online. So is there anything else i can do to try at least figure out what the problem is before just trying random things? thanks

Hi, Is there any exclamation mark or question mark beside the NIC card in Device Manager after reinstalling the driver? If so, I suggest you reinstall the driver inCompatibility Mode. If the issue persists, please let me know the detail brand or model of the NIC card and I will search the driver for you. Thanks,Novak

Novak,The mark in device manager looks like a yellow triangle with an exclamation mark in it.I can not install the driver in any sort of compatibility mode because i dont have that option. There's no install file, just 3 files- cant inf and sys. When i right click the inf file and say to install it says the INF file i selected does not support this method of installation.The onboard nic shows up as Atheros L1 Gigabit Ethernet 10/100/1000Base-T Controller

Hi, Please try to download the driver from the link below: Atheros L1 Gigabit Ethernet 10/100/1000Base-T Controller Note: The third-party product discussed here is manufactured by a company that is independent of Microsoft. We make no warranty, implied or otherwise, regarding this product's performance or reliability. If the issue still persists, please let me know the detail brand or model of the machine. Thanks,Novak

Hi Novack, thanks for the link. Is there any way to download the file without installing that radarsync software? i really dont want to install anything other then the driver. Also, windows update itself just tried to download and install a driver for the NIC and that failed as well. I really dont think it's a driver issue - i think there's something else messed up since the atheros card was working before without a problem with the driver. But i'm willing to try reinstalling the driver if i can download without installing that radarsync program. thanks

If you would not like to install above software, please answer me the following questions and I will assist you to troubleshoot the issue, 1. Can Windows Update locate the driver? If so, it means that Internet is already accessed now. Am I misunderstanding? 2. Please let me know the detail brand or model of the machine. Thanks, Novak

Let me re-explain the symptons again. I have a PCI NIC card installed as well as an onboard nic (one that is part of the motherboard). I had the onboard NIC disabled because i was not using it but it WAS working. I am using the PCI NIC now - it IS working. However, when go into the control panel, network & internet, network connections - normally there should be an entry in there for each NIC that's installed and operating in the system. When i go there in now, it's completely empty. MY NETWORK CONNECTION IS WORKING. But it's completely empty in there. This happened after I uninstalled a non-working virtual network adapter from hamachi. After I uninstalled that, the network connections control panel was blank even though my network connection is still working. When i re-enabled the onboard NIC, windows said it was working. I then uninstalled it and tried to reinstall it and now windows is saying it's not working. Even after i tried using the same driver it was using before. Even after I TRIED USING WINDOWS UPDATE TO INSTALL THE DRIVER. This is why I do not want to uninstall the PCI NIC because i am worried it too will then become non-functional. This is why i don't think this is a driver issue. I think something is corrupted in the registry or something. So, can you please tell me if there's something i can do to figure out why everything disappeared in the network connections control panel? I'd really like to get this resolved since the problem has been ongoing now for almost 2 weeks. Motherboard is an ASUS p5k-Se Thanks for your help

hey, I am having the similar problem with Atheros L1 Gigabit Ethernet 10/100/1000Base-T Controller and not able to get the driver even with the help of software which is above mentioned. it can be really helpful if is possible to get the driver directly for windows 7. I have talked to Asus customer service but as usual got disappointed... hope to get the driver because pc is working perfect on windows 7. Thanks in advance..

Keyur, you should probably start another thread since the problem i am having is not driver related. You should be able to download the driver from windows update. Or if you go to support.asus.com you can download it from there.

Hi, Please also try the suggestions from the link below: Network connections folder empty Thanks, Novak

I tried those suggestions, they did not help. Didn't find any files that needed to be replaced and all the services were running and re-registering the network files didn't help. Anything else i can do? thanks

At this stage, please refer to the following article to modify relevant registry key for a test. If the issue persists, you may need perform an In-Place Upgrade to repair the system. I will provide the detail steps in the next post. Network Connections empty Thanks, Novak

i checked the registry key and it appears to be valid. There's 4 values and they are on separate lines. I tried using process monitor in the same way he did to see if i could find any errors, but i'm not sure how to find the correct instance of svchost using that tool. EDIT: i did find one thing in process explorer which seems to occur when i try to display the network connections. There's an error of NAME NOT FOUND for this key: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\RAS AutoDial\Default\DefaultInternet I checked the registry and there is no defaultinternet key - perhaps this is the problem? if so, how would i correct it? thanks

using process monitor i found these additional errors: not found: HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Network\{4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\{B9DDDB2A-DD95-45E5-8AE3-A5D6098B5C50}\Connection\MediaSubType HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\WMI\Security\5b23f342-8421-42ef-87eb-3b686f5a1b2a HKU\S-1-5-18_Classes HKCU\Software\Microsoft\RAS AutoDial\Default\DefaultInternet buffer overflow: HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Network\Config access denied: HKLM\Software\Microsoft\RAS AutoDial I dont know if any of these could cause the error i am having or not.

Any further ideas or suggestions?

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