M
mrbillishere
I have a basic desktop computer here. XP was installed Nov 2006 and all
updates are automatic. It's a Dell Optiplex GX270 with a P4 2.8Ghz CPU and
512MB of ram.
It was brought to my attention that all basic networking (browsing the net)
stopped functioning on Feb 12th. I'm just looking at it today.
I can't believe this.
At first glance, everything on the desktop appears normal. Except that all
application windows, like explorer, task manager, etc. just disappear when
minimized, as opposed to putting themselves into the taskbar. They're still
there in the background though, and Alt-tab brings them back up. I've taken
to using the Cascade function instead of minimizing... now it reminds me of
Win 3.1. lol.
I also can't open up most Properties dialogs. For instance, when you
right-click an item in the Event Log and choose Properties... nothing
happens. This is also true for items in the Services.msc app, and Local Users
and Groups. So for example I wanted to create a new user profile. The
Control Panel applet is dead. So I did it via lusrmgr.msc, however I can't
add the new user to the local administrators group because I can't view
groups. The properties dialog won't work. And if I try to put focus on the
Administrators group and then right-click and choose All Tasks-->Add to Group
I get an error stating "The RPC server is unavailable."
Which leads me to how I noticed that all core services, except two, aren't
running. Originally, because of the issue with not being able to access the
web, I looked at IPCONFIG/ALL to see what the IP setup was like. It said it
wasn't working at all. So I went into Network Connections. That window is
completely empty, except for the column heading across the top of the Details
view. I remembered there was a Service by the same name, so I opened up the
Services MMC snap-in. There I discovered Network connections was not started
(but set to Automatic) so I tried to start it. An error came back saying
"The Dependency service or group failed to start." So I looked it upin the
registry and it pointed to RPC Service. I noticed that wasn't running either,
and when I try to start it I get an error saying "Could not start the Remote
Procedure Call service on local computer. Error 2: The system cannot find the
file specified." Oh great.... excpet that the file is there, in the system32
folder just like it's always been.
Finally looking at the big picture I discovered that the only services
running were Plug N Play and the Event Log. Oh, and my eTrust Antivirus
services are running. But that's it
I've read and messed around with the topics in KB articles 316434 and 310353
- basically doing a clean boot, and also trying safe mode. In all cases,
nothing else is working.
I CAN'T READ EVENT LOG EVENTS which is highly frustrating. All I've gleaned
is that the last time the OS worked properly was on the 12th. I saw that
three hotfixes were installed on that date and I did my best to see that they
were uninstalled properly, but to no avail.
SYSTEM RESTORE is not able to run either, so that really sucks.
If anyone can offer up any advice I'd be very grateful.
Thanks!
updates are automatic. It's a Dell Optiplex GX270 with a P4 2.8Ghz CPU and
512MB of ram.
It was brought to my attention that all basic networking (browsing the net)
stopped functioning on Feb 12th. I'm just looking at it today.
I can't believe this.
At first glance, everything on the desktop appears normal. Except that all
application windows, like explorer, task manager, etc. just disappear when
minimized, as opposed to putting themselves into the taskbar. They're still
there in the background though, and Alt-tab brings them back up. I've taken
to using the Cascade function instead of minimizing... now it reminds me of
Win 3.1. lol.
I also can't open up most Properties dialogs. For instance, when you
right-click an item in the Event Log and choose Properties... nothing
happens. This is also true for items in the Services.msc app, and Local Users
and Groups. So for example I wanted to create a new user profile. The
Control Panel applet is dead. So I did it via lusrmgr.msc, however I can't
add the new user to the local administrators group because I can't view
groups. The properties dialog won't work. And if I try to put focus on the
Administrators group and then right-click and choose All Tasks-->Add to Group
I get an error stating "The RPC server is unavailable."
Which leads me to how I noticed that all core services, except two, aren't
running. Originally, because of the issue with not being able to access the
web, I looked at IPCONFIG/ALL to see what the IP setup was like. It said it
wasn't working at all. So I went into Network Connections. That window is
completely empty, except for the column heading across the top of the Details
view. I remembered there was a Service by the same name, so I opened up the
Services MMC snap-in. There I discovered Network connections was not started
(but set to Automatic) so I tried to start it. An error came back saying
"The Dependency service or group failed to start." So I looked it upin the
registry and it pointed to RPC Service. I noticed that wasn't running either,
and when I try to start it I get an error saying "Could not start the Remote
Procedure Call service on local computer. Error 2: The system cannot find the
file specified." Oh great.... excpet that the file is there, in the system32
folder just like it's always been.
Finally looking at the big picture I discovered that the only services
running were Plug N Play and the Event Log. Oh, and my eTrust Antivirus
services are running. But that's it
I've read and messed around with the topics in KB articles 316434 and 310353
- basically doing a clean boot, and also trying safe mode. In all cases,
nothing else is working.
I CAN'T READ EVENT LOG EVENTS which is highly frustrating. All I've gleaned
is that the last time the OS worked properly was on the 12th. I saw that
three hotfixes were installed on that date and I did my best to see that they
were uninstalled properly, but to no avail.
SYSTEM RESTORE is not able to run either, so that really sucks.
If anyone can offer up any advice I'd be very grateful.
Thanks!