How to "REPAIR" a wireless connection

[Ike]

Vista Home Premium, Core Duo

In XP and 98 I could click on the ONLINE icon in the
notification portion of the tray, select REPAIR, and solve
certain wireless problems.

I don't see such an icon in Vista, and if there's a REPAIR
function I don't know how to access it. I did
PROPERTIES>NOTIFICATION>CUSTOMIZE, etc. and there is no option
to see such an icon.

On the other hand, it's great that in six weeks of Vista I
haven't had a connectivity problem... in XP it happened
frequently. But today I lost the net and the only way I found to
get back on was a reboot. Surely there's a REPAIR function
somewhere...

Ike

 

[Michael Solomon]

Vista Home Premium, Core Duo

In XP and 98 I could click on the ONLINE icon in the notification portion
of the tray, select REPAIR, and solve certain wireless problems.

I don't see such an icon in Vista, and if there's a REPAIR function I
don't know how to access it. I did PROPERTIES>NOTIFICATION>CUSTOMIZE, etc.
and there is no option to see such an icon.

On the other hand, it's great that in six weeks of Vista I haven't had a
connectivity problem... in XP it happened frequently. But today I lost the
net and the only way I found to get back on was a reboot. Surely there's a
REPAIR function somewhere...

Ike

I don't know why the Network icon is not being displayed in the notification
area, I suspect it may be a driver issue related to your network card.
However, you can repair as follows and the only thing the Network icon would
provide you is a link to open this dialog. Go to Control Panel and select
"Network and Sharing" center. In the left column, the "Tasks" list, click
"Diagnose and repair."

In Vista, the network icon should appear by default in the notification
area. In a Google search, I did find others who have the same problem but
in my preliminary check, I've not found a cause or a solution beyond rolling
back to a time when it did appear. Since, in your case, it seems it never
was there, that's not possible for you but based on the random nature of
this issue, it does seem to be a driver issue. You might want to check to
be sure you have the latest drivers for your network card.

 

[Ike]

I don't know why the Network icon is not being displayed in the
notification area, I suspect it may be a driver issue related to your
network card. However, you can repair as follows and the only thing the
Network icon would provide you is a link to open this dialog. Go to
Control Panel and select "Network and Sharing" center. In the left
column, the "Tasks" list, click "Diagnose and repair."

In Vista, the network icon should appear by default in the notification
area. In a Google search, I did find others who have the same problem
but in my preliminary check, I've not found a cause or a solution beyond
rolling back to a time when it did appear. Since, in your case, it
seems it never was there, that's not possible for you but based on the
random nature of this issue, it does seem to be a driver issue. You
might want to check to be sure you have the latest drivers for your
network card.

This worked perfectly - thanks! However, a minute later the
problem arose again, which leads me to suspect that it is not
Vista-related. It's a new Dell laptop, so I will call them for
some hardware diagnostics.

With gratitude...

 

[Michael Solomon]

This worked perfectly - thanks! However, a minute later the problem arose
again, which leads me to suspect that it is not Vista-related. It's a new
Dell laptop, so I will call them for some hardware diagnostics.

With gratitude...

You're welcome, good luck.