[AKAK]

My 6-week-old Dell running Vista Home Basic suddenly gives me the following error message on startup: "Failed to connect to a Windows service: Could not connect to System Event Notification Service." Among other things, this prevents me from connecting to my wireless network, so I can't get on-line. It also prevents several programs within Kaspersky Internet Security from starting. Rebooting doesn't help. And the problem occurs regardless of whether I sign on as administrator or as general user.

More: I can't access the Windows Help & Support pages. And I'm told to "see System Events log" for details, but when I try, it says "Event Log Service is unavailable." When I try System Restore, it says "back-up hasn't been set up." (Aren't restore points set automatically?)

Please help!

[uhaligani]

I have a family member who had the same problem. He came up with 2 solutions. One is not to logon to quickly to your user account - make sure the HD activity is complete. The other was to disable the Windows defender.

[AKAK]

Thanks for this. Unfortunately, disabling W Defender didn't solve the problem.

[uhaligani]

You do have the service enabled and on automatic?

[AKAK]

Well, I certainly never *dis*abled it, and the system was working fine up until a couple of days ago. But perhaps I should check. How do I do that?

[kama64]

Click on Start, then type Services and press enter
Click continue if prompted with UAC
Then scroll down in the Services and look for Windows Defender

[AKAK]

kama64: I'm a little confused. Why would I be looking for Windows Defender? I disabled that in the hopes of solving my original problem. When the preceding message asked if I had "the service" enabled, I assumed that referred to System Event Notification Service. In any case, that's what I had in mind when I asked how to check. Thanks.

[uhaligani]

I,ll bet your confused!!
In the RUN box, type Services.msc
There you will find a list of all running srvces. You will find you can change any of these to disabled, automatic or manual.
As this is obviously one of your familiar areas, don't alter any except a perusal of the one I mentioned!!

[eugeneg]

Hey Akak, I am in exactly the same predicament. How did you solve this problem please ?

[Cliff.Steer]

This happened to me when I was trying to install Trend Micro internet security 2008 on my father-in-law's PC. No access to internet - no system restore = nada. I was almost certain that I'd bricked my father-in-law's PC. I'd just updated his pc to Vista SP 1 so there were a lot of variables in play. I tried a lot of things including the MS Installer Clean-up and removing Trend Mcro drivers and artifacts from the registry, the hardware manager(hidden devices) and file system to no avail.
I googled an item which indicated that using an elevated command prompt and typing "NETSH WINSOCK RESET CATALOG" minus the quotes and tried it. Amazingly, it cleared the problem. This command resets WINSOCK settings to default and any programs which use their own WINSOCK LSPs need to be re-installed but it allowed me to connect to the internet, access system restore and rollback to a previous restore point which avoided the world of hurt that I was in. Posted in the hope that it might aid another in a similar siuation.