A Myriad of Vista Issues

Honestly, I'm fairly content to ignore all of these messages as it seems some of them are either A. Unfixable or B. Fixing them results in enormous and dangerous security problems. I have a running list of error messages that Vista keeps popping up so I'll just type out the list first:

COM+ Event System has stopped working
Host process for windows services has stopped working
SSDP Discovery has stopped working
Network Store Interface has stopped working
WinHTTP Proxy Auto-Discovery Service has stopped working

The only real problem that one of these is causing, and I'm not sure which one, is that my computer doesn't actually recognize that it is connected to the internet. I can use the internet, I can play games on the internet, I can do everything associated with connecting to the internet, however, the computer doesn't see that I am on the internet. This is a problem because it also does not recognize networks so I can't connect to other computers on the network, to printers on the network or even to the modem.

If anyone knows how to fix any of these many problems please impart on me knowledge which I am lacking but if not I'll continue to ignore them and allow my hatred of Vista to grow exponentially every time one pops up (and consider installing XP so I don't have to deal with this annoying junk).

 

And you've checked for any malware?

I don't understand this when it's already possible that you have a security problem.

Having any of those error messages appear is not a good thing.

 

I run Avast which is fully updated and didn't find anything on my last scan. I found a few things on a Spybot scan but nothing dangerous and from what I can tell. Maybe I'm missing something that you see but none of these services really scream "Deathly Virus Has Invaded And Is Destroying Your Computer", it's just annoying that I can't see my network and my computer doesn't detect that it is using the internet.

 

Are your drivers up to date? And your OS?

 

All drivers are good, checked everything when I got the new laptop a few weeks ago. Vista is fully updated, just checked for updates manually last week when the problems started but nothing new.

They really don't sound like driver issues, though, since all five errors are related to windows services. I guess maybe a driver could cause them to malfunction but if my drivers were out of date the problems would have appeared immediately not two weeks after I got the computer.

 

Do you have AOL Instant Messenger installed?

 

Here is a little test to see if you can connect to any other computer on the network

Log on to both computers

Go to the computer you wish to connect to, right-click on "Computer" and choose "Properties". You computer name should be listed there if the other computer is running Vista. If it is running XP, then go to the "Computer Name" tab and the name should be there.

Remember this name. In the following example I will use rdmctigger'sComputer. Please change this for whatever the computer name is.

Go to the faulty computer and open up "Computer". In the location bar at the top of the screen, where it says "> Computer >", click in that space. Then Type in: \\rdmctigger's Computer\

This should give you access to the other computers on your network.