D865PERL: network still works with "no adapter"

We have lost our "local area network" if we ever had it. Nothing shows up
in the network connections popup. Bringing up System - Network Adapters in
control panel shows no adapter present. If I click on "show hidden items"
then the Intel Pro/100 VE miniport shows up. This does not seem to the
built in ethernet not to function. It works perfectly, in fact it worked
for for about a year and we never knew we had a problem until XP Pro Service
pack 2 went in and the firewall got enabled. It blocked all access to the
computer and "shared files" on this system were no longer accessible. When
I went to the firewall panel and looked at exclusions, "local area network"
was not available. When I started backtracking I discovered the "Pro/100"
chipset was not listed under network adapters unless I enable "hidden
items".

I downloaded and re-installed...

latest bios from intel
latest chipset inf
latest network drivers
latest audio drivers

All driver upgrades say i am using the most current. I cannot get that
"Pro/100 VE" chipset to show up. If a force on in using "Add Hardware" it
shows up as local area connection #2 and has that yellow bang. Clearly,
something in the registery has gotten corrupted. I got into regedit and
poked around and found about 18 network devices including that 2nd non
working "Pro/100 VE". If I uninstall the one I forced in, the count goes
down to 17 so I know I am close to where the problem is. I do no know
enough about the registery and what those entries are. Anybody got any
suggestions?

FWIW, on a hunch I added a spare 3com ethernet adapter. It worked just
fine, but same problem...it does not show up as a network connection.

"Beemer Biker" <antispam DeleteThis @sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:MaPyd.2626$F67.1851@newssvr12.news.prodigy.com...
> We have lost our "local area network" if we ever had it. Nothing shows up
> in the network connections popup. Bringing up System - Network Adapters in
> control panel shows no adapter present. If I click on "show hidden items"
> then the Intel Pro/100 VE miniport shows up. This does not seem to the
> built in ethernet not to function. It works perfectly, in fact it worked
> for for about a year and we never knew we had a problem until XP Pro Service
> pack 2 went in and the firewall got enabled. It blocked all access to the
> computer and "shared files" on this system were no longer accessible. When
> I went to the firewall panel and looked at exclusions, "local area network"
> was not available. When I started backtracking I discovered the "Pro/100"
> chipset was not listed under network adapters unless I enable "hidden
> items".
>
> I downloaded and re-installed...
>
> latest bios from intel
> latest chipset inf
> latest network drivers
> latest audio drivers
>
> All driver upgrades say i am using the most current. I cannot get that
> "Pro/100 VE" chipset to show up. If a force on in using "Add Hardware" it
> shows up as local area connection #2 and has that yellow bang. Clearly,
> something in the registery has gotten corrupted. I got into regedit and
> poked around and found about 18 network devices including that 2nd non
> working "Pro/100 VE". If I uninstall the one I forced in, the count goes
> down to 17 so I know I am close to where the problem is. I do no know
> enough about the registery and what those entries are. Anybody got any
> suggestions?
>
> FWIW, on a hunch I added a spare 3com ethernet adapter. It worked just
> fine, but same problem...it does not show up as a network connection.
>

Amazingly enough, I ran into this same problem last week when I attempted
to remove an XP SP1 hotfix in Add/Remove Programs that was not
automatically removed when I had installed SP2 a couple of months ago.
I ignored the warning about the software that was installed after the patch
I was trying to remove, and in the process, hosed my networking connections
completely. In my case, the onboard Intel VE adapter still showed up in
Device Manager, but when I uninstalled in and redetected it, again
nothing appeared under Network Connections.

I didn't have a WinXP SP2 CD handy to attempt a repair installation, so
my next best guess was to remove SP2, after first removing all of the
patches I had applied since installing SP2. At some point, the proper
networking driver was restored and I had my network back again. In
this particular case, networking was restored after removing one of the
post-SP2 patches, so I probably didn't have to remove and reinstall
Service Pack 2, but did so anyways just to be sure nothing else was
mucked up.

Bob