Network connections?

[Adawa Kisai]

Here is my quandary, I use Win XP Pro, and when I go into the Network connections folder from the start menu or the control panel, there is NOTHING there at all. No icons period.
I've got cable and a D-link ethernet card. If I go into device manager, it shows up, along with the 1394 connection from the Audigy. The internet works just fine, I'm confused.
Oh, I wanted to know as the shortcut allows you to modify settings for the firewall program built into XP. I don't have the $$$ right now to buy anything better. Is there a better way to get into the firewall options?
Any help would be muchly appreciated.
Thank you kindly.

 

[Fhuising]

What happens if you reinstal the network cards, or go to setup a network? Please let me know.

 

[Adawa Kisai]

Tried both. Same result. Even tried a different brand of card I borrowed, no change. I have tried setup/add new connection, and it will go through all the steps, and when I reboot it, I still get nothing in the network connections folder. My ISP disk tells me that the connection already exists when I run it. Like I said, it all works fine, just doesn't show up. I searched through all the folder menu options and tried the help section as well. This all brought me no closer to a solution. I thought maybe something was hidden or it was an option I had inadvertantly checked, but that doesn"t seem to be the case. Thanks for the reply, and hopefully for more assistance.

 

[keylo]

when you say "ISP disk" are you referring to a cd, such as @home used to offer to setup you connections? If so, I would say that this could be the start of your problem. To explain why you dont see "network connections" I am not sure what to tell you honestly.

This information is also needed while troubleshooting your problem:

1. What is your internet connection? cable, dsl, dialup?

2. Is your connection being shared? if so, how? hub, router, ICS?


One other thing, I dont think this will make a bit of difference, but I wont know until you have tried. If you havent got the "Network Connections" icon on your desktop, then do so, by right clicking your desktop, click on properties, navigate to the desktop tab, then the "customize desktop" button, and put a checkmark in the network connections box.
After doing this, right click the network icon on the desktop, the select properties and take a screen shot of that window and post it here. Slim chance that this will be any different than going the routes you have previously taken, but when troubleshooting, you exhaust all options. This is the first thing you should do along with providing the information to the above questions. Then the next step would be to put in the disk and uninstall your network connection thru the disk. And then manually configure and setup a tcp/ip connection for that particular nic card you are using.

 

[Adawa Kisai]

Cable connection. It's not on a hub or anything. Just mine. I'll try out the suggestions after work. Thanks a bunch.