Background. I put a Fingbox on my home LAN some time ago to investigate
a problem that turned out to be a cheap extender. Since replacing it
with a Netgear mesh that has been fine. I find it handy to keep the Fing
app on my phone and tablet for random checking of devices. I also had
the app on my Win10 desktop machine, but never used that much.

For a few weeks it has been prompting me to update this, but automatic
updates were failing so I decided to uninstall. It would not uninstall
properly from Control Panel, so I tried to delete the program folders.
That didn't work because it kept finding files open. After some faffing
around killing Fing processes in Task Manager I seemed to have got rid
of it, and the folders would delete.

But since then, when powering up the desktop can't see anything on the
network, or get to the internet. But if I then do a restart, it's fine.
I've checked my Startup programs and disabled everything like the
printer status ones although I have left Java and MS updates, and
Windows security notification. I have not delved into the registry.

Any idea what I might have done wrong? I havn't tried booting in safe mode.

TIA

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On 26/11/2021 10:16, newshound wrote:

Background. I put a Fingbox on my home LAN some time ago to investigate
a problem that turned out to be a cheap extender. Since replacing it
with a Netgear mesh that has been fine. I find it handy to keep the Fing
app on my phone and tablet for random checking of devices. I also had
the app on my Win10 desktop machine, but never used that much.

For a few weeks it has been prompting me to update this, but automatic updates were failing so I decided to uninstall. It would not uninstall properly from Control Panel, so I tried to delete the program folders.
That didn't work because it kept finding files open. After some faffing around killing Fing processes in Task Manager I seemed to have got rid
of it, and the folders would delete.

But since then, when powering up the desktop can't see anything on the network, or get to the internet. But if I then do a restart, it's fine.
I've checked my Startup programs and disabled everything like the
printer status ones although I have left Java and MS updates, and
Windows security notification. I have not delved into the registry.

Any idea what I might have done wrong? I havn't tried booting in safe mode.

TIA

I'm not really following, but network sniffers, like I suspect "fing"
is, usually enable something like NPCAP on the Ethernet adapter.

My guess is that trying to uninstall fing has tried to uninstall NPCAP
and has totally disabled the Ethernet network adapter.

So have a look in:

Control Panel\Network and Internet\Network Connections

Then see if the network adapter is disabled.

Or wait for someone who really knows what they are talking about :-)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 26/11/2021 12:52, Pancho wrote:

On 26/11/2021 10:16, newshound wrote:

Background. I put a Fingbox on my home LAN some time ago to
investigate a problem that turned out to be a cheap extender. Since
replacing it with a Netgear mesh that has been fine. I find it handy
to keep the Fing app on my phone and tablet for random checking of
devices. I also had the app on my Win10 desktop machine, but never
used that much.

For a few weeks it has been prompting me to update this, but automatic
updates were failing so I decided to uninstall. It would not uninstall
properly from Control Panel, so I tried to delete the program folders.
That didn't work because it kept finding files open. After some
faffing around killing Fing processes in Task Manager I seemed to have
got rid of it, and the folders would delete.

But since then, when powering up the desktop can't see anything on the
network, or get to the internet. But if I then do a restart, it's
fine. I've checked my Startup programs and disabled everything like
the printer status ones although I have left Java and MS updates, and
Windows security notification. I have not delved into the registry.

Any idea what I might have done wrong? I havn't tried booting in safe
mode.

TIA

I'm not really following, but network sniffers, like I suspect "fing"
is, usually enable something like NPCAP on the Ethernet adapter.

My guess is that trying to uninstall fing has tried to uninstall NPCAP
and has totally disabled the Ethernet network adapter.

So have a look in:

Control Panel\Network and Internet\Network Connections

Then see if the network adapter is disabled.

Or wait for someone who really knows what they are talking about :-)

Thanks for the suggestion. Immediately after booting, CP Device Manager
says that the network adapter is working correctly, but

Control panel / Network & Internet / Network and sharing centre

says no network access. Running the troubleshooter, it says

"Problem found, Ethernet doesn't have valid IP configuration: Fixed"

and then it is OK. So, I have a slightly quicker fix than rebooting, but
still no real clue about the underlying problem. (I only have very
shallow knowledge about networking, and I couldn't figure out which
option Pancho was suggesting after CP / Network & Internet. I have Npcap
OEM showing in my installed programs)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 27/11/2021 10:06, newshound wrote:

Ethernet doesn't have valid IP configuration

This is the sort of stuff I would try.

<https://geeksadvice.com/fix-ethernet-doesnt-have-a-valid-ip-configuration-error/>

I'm also not clear what the difference between a power up and a restart
is. I have noticed that network adapters sometime have problems when a
PC comes out of sleep (or hibernate), but are fine with a proper reboot.
That is normally due to a driver problem.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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