It is nearly the end of 2010 and one of my machines is still running Windows XP - this either is a testament to how well Windows XP works or to how slow I am at upgrading some of my systems. Anyhow, the other day I encountered a rather unusual problem in that I needed to change a few settings on my network adapter, however for an unknown reason my network connections folder was empty and when accessing it I was greeted with the following error message: “The network connections folder was unable to retrieve the list of Network adapters on your machine. Please make sure that the Network Connections service is enabled and running.” Quickly checking the services running on the systems showed that the network connections service was running correctly and as such there must have been a different culprit. Browsing around the web in hope of finding a solution I ended up going down many different dead ends, but eventually I ran across the following solution which worked, so if you have a similar problem hopefully you’ll find this useful:

1. Click Start/Run. Then type cmd.exe and click OK

2. In the cmd wind type the following and press enter after each

a. regsvr32 netshell.dll
b. regsvr32 netcfgx.dll
c. regsvr32 netman.dll

3. Restart your system

The above fixed the problem for me. It seems that as is typical in the Windows world, some of the DLLs were not registered correctly for one reason or another. If you get an error message trying to register one of the DLLs above it might indicate that the dll is corrupt, in which case you might want to grab a copy from another Windows XP machine and after copying it over the existing one, trying the above procedure again. If that still does not work there is always the brute force option of re-installing Windows XP over itself – This should be a last resort through since a lot of the security patches will need to be downloaded thereafter all over again.

I’m notoriously slow when it comes to updating my phones, or maybe I just don’t destroy them as fast as some other folks. I’ve noticed looking back through my blog I’ve been in the Motorola camp for a long time. Back in 2004 I talked about the Motorola V180, which was mediocre at best. Then, around 2006 I migrated to the Motorola L7, which overall was a very good phone in general minus a few hiccups with Bluetooth functionality. In 2008 I moved on to the Motorola RAZR2 V9, and my opinion about it was that it was mediocre at best. Now true to my two year cycle, I’ve finally upgrade to a Smartphone, namely the HTC Aria. Why not another Motorola? Well, simply put the only available Motorola Android from AT&T at the time was the Backflip and frankly put I found it quite ugly and cheap looking with all the plastic. Additionally, it also felt a little thick and bulky due to the keyboard. I played around with the Samsung Captivate, which had an amazing screen, and the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 which had a nice display as well and felt more comfortable when gripped over the Samsung. However, both of these devices with their 4” screens were simply a bit on the large side making them a little awkward to hold when talking on the phone. Their size also makes them a bit large when stored in a pens pocket, which could make them more prone to damage when sitting down whatnot. Why not an iPhone? Let’s just say that me and Apple products don’t generally get along very well :).

My main home system has always been fast, especially ever since I dropped in an Intel quad-core extreme processors. The only problem that I’ve had is that now and then it was just a bit unstable. Not too often per se, but always at precisely the most inopportune of times. For the longest time I believed my memory to be the culprit.  I tried slowing down the timings and adjusting a few other parameters, but to no avail. Well, eventually I did some more research and found out that the voltage regulators on my motherboard were not up to par. Sure, the motherboard stated that it supported quad-core processors when I bought it way back when, but as it turns out, ASUS only meant non-demanding quad-core processors, for which the extreme series obviously does not qualify. There was really no point in upgrading anything else on my system at this time, so I simply picked up a new motherboard to fix the issue, namely the Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P. After having completed the upgrade, I have to say I’m extremely happy with my new motherboard: The system is stable, runs significantly cooler than before, there is a lot less noise on the audio channels, and I was able to push the chip and memory frequencies significantly more without even trying. Completing the upgrade however proved to be quite an adventure.