NTBUGTRAQ - Uninstalling / Reinstalling TCP/IP on Windows XP/2003

From: Russell Tammany (russell_at_XPONENTIA.NET)
Date: 08/12/04

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    Date:         Thu, 12 Aug 2004 14:50:25 -0700
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    I'm posting these instructions to NTBUGTRAQ in the hopes this
    information will help anyone who is having issues with TCP/IP on Windows
    XP (or 2003 Server)

    I had been running the past couple SP2 RC's and beta's. When I
    uninstalled the last RC to install the final, my TCP/IP was butchered.
    Got IPCONFIG message of "System call that should never fail has failed"
    and couldn't ping localhost or 127.0.0.1. I poked around enough in the
    registry to get all IP connectivity working again but DHCP and DNS was
    still pretty broken, and I suspected NetBT was messed up as well.

    As I had disabled system restore (being my primary home workstation)
    that wasn't an option. Installing SP2 didn't fix the problem either. MS
    has a KB (299357, 317518) that shows how to use netsh to reset tcp/ip,
    but it only checks and resets a few registry keys. What it fixed wasn't
    enough to get normal tcp/ip functionality back.

    After working with MS PSS, Steve Upton and a colleague or two came up
    with this solution. I've edited it a bit to make it a little clearer and
    added some notes.

    According to a MS PSS manager, MS needs a couple more support incidents
    before considering making this a KB article, but after searching every
    resource I knew of, newsgroups, web forums, etc I found many people with
    strange XP TCP/IP problems that these steps will probably resolve. I'm
    also personally not fond of loosing the ability to Uninstall (like in
    every previous OS) to fix problems, and to have the replacement
    procedure for uninstalling not perform the same tasks.

    -Russell Tammany, MCSE
    Senior Systems Engineer
    Xponentia Inc.

    (If anyone can confirm this is the same on non-x86 machine types that
    would be great. I assume it is, but did not ask MS at the time and don't
    have a non-x86 system to test on)

    Also of note with Windows XP SP2 and When Windows Server 2003 Service
    Pack 1 is available, you can use the "netsh winsock reset" command to
    repair Winsock. This may be an alternative to the following steps in
    some scenarios.

    ========================================================================
    ==============================
    Supported Operating Systems:
    Windows XP All Versions/Machine Types(?)
    Windows 2003 All Versions/Machine Types(?)

    PROBLEM: TCP/IP not working, "netsh interface ip reset resetlog.txt"
    fails to resolve.

    RESOLUTION: Enabling of Uninstalling TCP/IP, Uninstalling TCP/IP,
    Reinstalling TCP/IP, Reboot

    1. Open up Regedit

    2 Browse over to the following keys and delete them

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Winsock
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\WinSock2

    3. Close regedit and locate the nettcpip.inf file in %winroot%\inf. Make
    a backup copy to restore later (optional).

    4. Open the nettcpip.inf in notepad
         
         Under the section [MS_TCPIP.PrimaryInstall],
         Change "Characteristics = 0xa0" to "Characteristics = 0x80" and
    save the file.

    5. Open Network Connections and right click on Local Area Connection and
    select properties

    6. In the Properties of Local Area Connection, click Install, Protocol,
    Add click "have disk" and type in c:\windows\inf.

    7. Choose TCP/IP from the list.

    Note: This will bring you back to a properties screen, but now the
    Uninstall button is available.

    8. Highlight TCP/IP and then click uninstall. *rebooting optional. Note
    that a lot of services will fail*

    9. Restore the backup copy of nettcpip.inf that you made (optional)

    10. Open Network Connections and right click on Local Area Connection
    and select properties

    11. In the Properties of Local Area Connection, click Install, Protocol,
    Add click "have disk" and type in c:\windows\inf.

    12. Choose TCP/IP from the list. Reboot normally

    ========================================================================
    ==============================

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  • Next message: Thor: "Re: XP SP2 nmap incompatibility"