For those of y’all who find computer puzzles off-putting, scroll on down to another post… 🙂
I need to get back to simulating work in a bit, but meanwhile… As computer puzzles go, this one wasn’t all that enigmatic or difficult (pretty easy, in fact), but it came at a time when I was caffeine deprived and preoccupied with other things.
Between one CLICK and the next (well, almost :-)), every web page I tried to access came up with a not found error. Email client (Opera) started reporting network errors attempting to check or send email.
Check another coupla comps on the network. No internet/network problems there.
OK, the obvious things: try pinging other comps on the network from the problem comp. No joy. Definitely the problem comp is the problem, but where?
Rebooted the router and released/renewed network connection on the problem comp, anyway. Renewed all right. Tried some pages. Hmmm… same error. Clear cache, reload. Loaded… partway, then stopped.
Well, there were other things I could have tried, but I decided to update/change my NIC driver and… bob’s your uncle. Smoothe sailing, now.
How did the NIC driver become corrupted? Your guess is as good as mine. Could have been any number of things–including the fact that all these problems started when I uninstalled Network Magic!
Aha! Yeh, I try these kindsa apps out so I can either recommend them to folks who can’t afford an onsite network admin person or recommend they stay away from this app or that.
And I have to say Network Magic was a mixed bag. I had a well-oiled machine going on my network before I installed it, and, for a while, Network Magic seemed to be OK. But then the little things started bugging me.
It couldn’t see or talk to the Linux/BSD machines. Dumb. Real dumb. That was enough to put me off it, but not enough to kill it for folks who have a Windows-only network, so I kept it around for testing a bit longer.
Hmmm… network printers dropped in and out of availability for no discernable reason. Strange. Lotsa griping and complaining from the app about Windows computers with automatic updates turned OFF (the only reasonable way to fly with Windows, IMO, given the number of “updates” from Me$$y$oft that have fragged folks’ computers). Nag, nag, nag.
Killer? Every time it needed web access, it ignored the system default browser and invoked Internet Exploder, the world’s crappiest browser.
Nope, couldn’t recommend it. So, uninstalled.
Now, I recognize that unless I can nail down a definitive cause, associating the NIC driver corruption with the uninstall of Network Magic that occurred immediately before the network problem occurred is potentially a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, but…
I just ran a Registry scan using two different registry scanners I have come to rely on as safe and…
Over 6,000 errors noted by one in a Registry that scanned as OK the day before.
With only the Network Magic uninstall and the NIC driver change as any difference.
I think I’ll recommend folks avoid Network Magic. You think?
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