connection issues...

this has been an ongoing problem for a while now. ive tried many solutions and nothing has worked besides using a different operating system. i do not wish to do that though, so i would prefer to just fix my windows.

my laptop (hp pavilion dv7, windows vista x64) randomly stopped connecting to the internet through both wifi and wired connections. when i plugged in an ethernet cable it would act as if i hadnt at all, and wireless connections would "connect", but no data would exchange. when i run a diagnostic on the connections it says somthing about "the network connection is not properly configured to use IP protocols".

so i checked to make sure my hardware drivers were ok. they were, but to be sure i uninstalled and reinstalled brand new fresh drivers straight from the manufacturer. i also checked to make sure that ipv4 and ipv6 were checked in the settings for the devices. they were. after all this the problem was unchanged.

i did some googling and found out that having norton antivirus installed previously might have done this, so i ran the removal tool from the norton site as well as went along behind it and manually removed all registry entries for symantec. i ran a registry cleaner and rebooted. problem remained.

i even downgraded to vista sp1 and tried with no success, so i reinstalled sp2 also to have no luck.

finally i read online somewhere that in this situation it might be a good idea to try a different operating system to verify its not a hardware issue. i downloaded ubuntu and booted it from a disk on to my laptop to test things out. the internet has absolutely no problems on ubuntu.

i would just replace windows with ubuntu but because of work and family i dont have time to learn a new operating system like that right now. its also part of the reason im asking you for help. im out of ideas and dont really have time to keep stabbing in the dark. please help me fix my windows!

(ps: factory reset of my laptop is not an option as my recovery partition is corrupt. no disks were provided with the laptop and i have no money to purchase any.)

When you had Ubuntu on did you look at the properties of ipv4
If you fill in the same it should work for Vista.
Your settings are not correct. There is no driver fault that is why new drivers didn't fix it. You have filled in the ip address or one of the other settings wrong.

With and without, ubuntu I manually set my wireless ip address,dns, gateway etc. because of some hardware I'm playing with. I only know a little, but that's all i set and it worked on ubuntu and not Vista. Ethernet remained untouched and settings ( in terms of dns ip address gateway etc ) were all at default (auto). There may be advanced settings I haven't gotten into and know nothing about.. what should I look out for?

issue also being covered here: connection issues..

Reinstall and Reset TCP/IP (Internet Protocol) in Windows Vista, 2003 and XP - Windows Vista - Zimbio
I think this is just another way to do what you have already been told to do on the other post.

Yes. Thanks but I've tried that.