Vista connectivity issues - firewall/WAN Miniport/error 31

hi, well this is a sticky issue. Mainly because I wont have a whole lot of info to give.
#1 its not my comp and I dont even have access to it - it's my bf comp and he cant get online to look for a solution or ask for help so Im here for him and have been searching for an answer for hours so far.
#2 its Vista... I dont do Vista, I do XP, I like XP... I'll do ME, I'll even do Win98... but I dont do Vista ..I dont like Vista so I dont even know what I am looking at, Ive been trying to help him remotely over the phone but with no luck.

Anyways, heres what happened: last night his comp froze and shutdown, the firewall upon restart was disabled and a warning about this popped up and when he tried to manually re-enable it he couldnt - no reason given as to why - just that enabling it was not possible (thats pretty much what the box said from what he told me and yes, I tried to get him to speak as tech as he could) Also there was no connectivity at all - big red X over icon in taskbar
Today when we were having a look through his comp was noticed that the WAN Miniports were all ! with error 31 (OK, found out its an old Vista prob but they have shown up as working before now as far as I know and as far as he recalls) a Windows update was run 3 days prior, but surely anything new would have created a problem immediately on update and not a cpl days later so Im assuming that the error 31 is a update caused prob (that went un noticed for a cpl of days) and only coincedental to the connectivity problem he is now having.
The firewall thing has me stumped, and its frustrating that I am unable to have a poke about in his comp personally. Ive asked him nicely (read: DO IT NOW DAMMIT!) to run a full virus scan and see what happens.

This problem isnt so much whats happening and how your suggestions may help us fix it, but more along the lines of your suggestions as to what could be out of whack and I'll check stuff remotely as per your instructions.
Sorry in advance for this being an *** about face way of doing things :S

Any help appreciated.

BTW he has a Toshiba Satellite laptop, Vista Home Premium w/ SP2... any more info into specs can be posted upon request

 

oh... Ive checked all the settings I can think of and nothing seems incorrect or off, everything thing seems as it should <for Vista>

 

also... tried rolling back drivers for network adapters, not able to. Tried a sys restore, not able to. Forgot to mention that.