Windows command of the week: “netsh winsock reset”

I discovered this fascinating command when trying to fix Kat’s computer.

Originally it showed a completely empty desktop with no icons or taskbar, just the wallpaper, even in so-called “Safe Mode”. A rollback to the last known good configuration solved this, but the networking still wouldn’t work. The DNS resolved domain names as garbage, some even containing bell characters that made the machine beep.

I tried uninstalling the driver for the network card and rebooting, at which point the DNS just stopped working altogether. The “ipconfig /renew all” command failed saying that “No adapter is in the state permissible for this operation”.

A quick Google search for this error message (using my handy palmtop that happened to work with Kat’s wi-fi) turned up a MSDN article that basically said: “Shit happens, type ‘netsh winsock reset’ and reboot”

And what do you know, it worked 🙂