Monday, February 22, 2010

WINXP - Cannot Disable Network Connections

I had a problem after the 2/10/2010 Microsoft Updates, I could NOT disable my Network Connection.

At home I normally disable/enable my Network Connection to provide increased security since I do not have a need to be online most of the time.

Note that this problem MAY not be caused by the updates themselves, since they did not cause this problem at work.


Disable Connection Error Dialog
(click for larger view)

I did find a fix via Google, rebuild of CatRoot2 folder, steps are....

  1. Boot to Safe Mode (no networking)

  2. Open Command Prompt, enter
    net stop cryptsvc
    and close dialog when stopped

  3. Goto C:\WINDOWS\system32\CatRoot2
    WARNING - NOT folder CatRoot

  4. Rename folder CatRoot2 -> OLDCatRoot2

  5. Reboot normally (forces rebuild of CatRoot2)

  6. If you can disable/enable Network Connections, you can delete folder OLDCatRoot2

Hope this works if you have this problem.