[invain]

I've had no problems with Vista for months, then suddenly all audio stops working, and now this.

I've noticed lately there's an x over the network icon in the taskbar. My laptop usually stays in my dorm room, so it's connected via ethernet so I rarely use the wireless card. I took my laptop to the library for the first time and tried connecting to my school's wireless network. When I put my cursor of the network icon, I get this message "Connection status: unknown. Server execution failed"

I used wireless all the time when I was at home, so this is the first time I've had problems connecting to a wireless network.

I decided to go to the control panel>network>connect to a network

About 5 minutes later the connect to a wireless network box comes up. When I try clicking on other networking tabs as well, the computer seems to freeze up, or it takes forever for it to open. Eventually I was somehow able to connect to our wireless network, but the icon in the lower right still shows a red x over it, like I'm not connected. When I click it, which usually brings up the networking folder, nothing happens.

I know my wireless card is working, as I'm on a wireless connection as I type this, but something is seriously wrong with my networking in Vista. Besides connecting I can't do anything.

[DaveA]

The red x is most likely your NIC (cat5) connection icon. And then there may be another one for the wireless connection, if it was told to be displayed in the systray.

[Rich-M]

What brand laptop? Many of them have on/off switches near the keyboard, have you checked for that to make sure it is enabled? If you go Run, devmgmt.msc, and hit enter and open the Network entry, does the wireless show enabled and working?

[invain]

Yeah, it shows teh wireless device as working properly.

Like I said, I can connect to a network, but it takes forever because something is obviously wrong with Vista's networking.

It's a Sager NP2090, but I don't think this has anything to do with hardware.

[invain]

Originally Posted by DaveA

The red x is most likely your NIC (cat5) connection icon. And then there may be another one for the wireless connection, if it was told to be displayed in the systray.

I'm pretty sure when I'm connected to a wireless connection it always only shows the one icon, so I don't think it's only for NIC. It's the icon I can right click on and then select connect to a network. Usually has a little pop-up over it when an available wireless network is availabe.

[invain]

Is there any way to do a diagnostic or repair the networking portion of vista, or would it take a re-install if Vista really is the problem?

I doubt I have any viruses as I keep a pretty good eye on them, but I guess I'll start doing some scans to see if there happens to be anything.

[freshaloe]

oh wow, dude I have this exact same problem. I have no idea what it is! The symptoms on my laptop match yours exactly. And also, when I try to access my ATI CATALYST Control Center, the window NEVER pops up.. so maybe it's a driver thing? Hopefully someone can come up with an answer, cuz this problem is very frustrating.

[freshaloe]

Alright here's a headsup.. I performed system restore back to 11/05/07. And now my network icon is appearing normally again.

[invain]

Interesting. I wondered what happened since yesterday.

[freshaloe]

I know I'm wondering as well, but I've noticed that something is still eating at my cpu usage... i have no idea what though...

[invain]

I haven't noticed any cpu usage problems. I guess I can still use a wireless connection, so it's not the absolute end of the world, but this is still very annoying.