device manager blank, network connections gone..

[Ludo Willems]

Dear all,
I have a sad story! Domnloaded from Kazaa, ran AdAware and found 36
spyware/malware. One of them identified as "possible browser hijack".
Cleaned it all out (ran Adaware 3x) deleted the lot and rebooted. Surprise:
LAN icon and WiFi-connection icons gone from the systray. Looking into my
network places: both connections gone! And impossible to create new
ones.Then to the device manager: blank. Spend my saterday surfing the fora
and applied all the good advices from numerous people: PnP, services
start/stop;registering devmgr again, look vorr corrupted registry entries
and security setting etc etc, all witouth any result ! I am considering
re-installing WinXP(sp2) but if anyone would have found a
solution to this problem, i could avoid a clean install. BTW, it does seem a
widespread fenomen considering the number of entries in the varies internet
forums.
Regards,
Ludo

 

[Sharon F]

Dear all,
I have a sad story! Domnloaded from Kazaa, ran AdAware and found 36
spyware/malware. One of them identified as "possible browser hijack".
Cleaned it all out (ran Adaware 3x) deleted the lot and rebooted. Surprise:
LAN icon and WiFi-connection icons gone from the systray. Looking into my
network places: both connections gone! And impossible to create new
ones.Then to the device manager: blank. Spend my saterday surfing the fora
and applied all the good advices from numerous people: PnP, services
start/stop;registering devmgr again, look vorr corrupted registry entries
and security setting etc etc, all witouth any result ! I am considering
re-installing WinXP(sp2) but if anyone would have found a
solution to this problem, i could avoid a clean install. BTW, it does seem a
widespread fenomen considering the number of entries in the varies internet
forums.
Regards,
Ludo

From your working computer, download a copy of LSPFIX for XP:
http://www.cexx.org/lspfix.htm
Try it to see if it can fix LSP that was damaged by the malware.

What has happened to you is not unusual. Malware will add or alter LSPs.
When the malware is removed, it's not unusual to be left with a damaged
LSP. The "fix" restores default LSPs so that online activity is once again
possible.

NOTE: The events you've experienced are so common that most of the advice
seen for malware removal suggests grabbing a copy of LSPFIX before running
repairs.

If still stuck after trying the fix, repair install or reinstall are the
only options left to try.