XP Home network settings disappear

[Van]

I have a desktop with XP Home, and a laptop with Vista Home Premium. My
problem is with setting up the network on the XP machine. After going
through all the steps itemized in this forum the network sometimes works just
fine. Even then, though, after a day or less the network settings in the XP
machine disappear, rendering the network inoperative. When I got to network
setup, it has not retained the previously entered settings, e.g., the network
name and the XP computer's name. Even when I reenter the data, the network
operability is not always restored. This is a fairly recent phenomenon,
i.e., within the past several weeks (I have had a newwork running just fine
for a couple of years, including the several months since I bought the new
laptop with the dreaded Vista on it.)

Any ideas out there?

 

[Anteaus]

Sporadic loss of settings generally indicates registry trouble of some kind.
If, on reboot, the registry cannot be opened, a backup copy is automatically
substituted for it. Thus, any settings made since the 'last known good' copy
of the registry are lost.

Check the logs in Event Viewer to see if there are any indications of a
registry rollback. Causes may range from bad sectors (serious) through to the
computer not shutting-down properly, and hence not closing the registry
files.

Another, simpler cause might be an unseated PCI card, if that is what you're
using. If the card is re-allocated by Plug and Play each time it
disconnects/connects, it will have new (default) settings each time.