Problem clearing NetBT when repairing a network adapter on Windows XP

You may find that a PC will lose it’s connection to the network and when you try to do a ‘Network Connection Repair’ it will give you an error and produce the message “Windows could not finish repairing the problem because the following action cannot be completed : Clearing NetBT, For assistance, contact the person who manages your network.”

There may be a number of causes for this problem and therefore, different fixes may have to be applied before the problem is resolved. See the steps below :

Step 1 : Removal of any Malware (if present). This kind of network problem can be caused by malicious software that has infected the computer and made changes to important registry settings. Therefore, the first step is to run full scans with your Anti-virus and Anti-Malware software
Once you are confident that the PC is clear of malicious software move onto the next step.

Step 2 : TCP/IP stack repair method

• Start, Run, CMD to open a command prompt.
• Reset WINSOCK entries to installation defaults: netsh winsock reset catalog
• Reset TCP/IP stack to installation defaults. netsh int ip reset [log_file_name – this can be any name]

Note: the log_file_name needs to be specified, e.g. netsh int ip reset reset.log

Step 3 : WinSock XP Fix
This is a free software utility that has been created to fix this type of problem.
Official description – “WinSock XP Fix offers a last resort if your Internet connectivity has been corrupted due to invalid or removed registry entries. It can often cure the problem of lost connections after the removal of Adware components or improper uninstall of firewall applications or other tools that modify the XP network and Winsock settings.”
Download it here

Step 4 : Uninstall and re-install the network drivers
· Make sure you know what network adapter you have on the PC or laptop and have the driver disk handy. If you do not have a driver disk then download the driver from the internet on a different machine and place it on USB drive to transfer to the problem PC.
· Right click My computer, Properties, Hardware tab, Device Manager
· Find network adapters on the list, expand it out to show your current adapter
· Right click the adapter select ‘Uninstall’ and confirm.
· It should now show as a problem item in your Device Manager list
· Go to the file you have on your disk or USB pen drive and re-install the network driver.

Any one of the above fixes should solve the problem.