Network Protocols

To avoid upgrade issues see my thread here. For old systems that are prone to issues, one should DISCONNECT from the internet and uninstall the antivirus and any other protection and disk utilities. Then start the upgrade to Windows 10 but UNCHECK the box to search for updates during install. This, as well as being disconnected from the internet should ensure Windows Setup will not try to mess with drivers before a successful upgrade to Windows 10 is complete. Then reinstall all the drivers starting from the chipset. For recent Intel chipsets (socket 1156 and newer) all INF driver files are compatible to Windows 10, so just install latest version for the respective chipset. For socket 775 you must install Windows 8 or 7 driver is there is no 10 one, but IT WILL work OK in Windows 10. Please do not spread unnecessary panic! After installing the chipset proceed to install graphics and other drivers. Always the preferred version is the latest OEM Windows 10 version, but if there isn't any, Windows 8 and 7 or even Vista should also work OK. After making sure all your devices have updated drivers, it is safe to connect to the Internet and activate Windows. But to avoid Windows Update screwing your drivers, I recommend using the show/hide tool to exclude ALL driver updates before running the first Windows Update. This will make sure Windows Update will only install useful patches and won't screw your working drivers, even if these drivers might be as old as Vista or even XP. Yes, I have installed Windows 10 32-bit to a few old Vista era laptops with Vista drivers (no newer available) and they work FINE. So unless you have done it yourself and have your own experience, please DON'T SCARE OTHERS!

I hope this is crystal clear now. Upgrade is not a disaster, as you try to prove! And a clean-install should not be necessary if your previous Windows installation is not a mess and you do a proper upgrade. Period. I am a Computer Technician, so please let me be more experienced than the average user. I know exactly what I'm doing and suggesting. I have done it myself numerous times.

spapakons said:

To avoid upgrade issues see my thread here. For old systems that are prone to issues, one should DISCONNECT from the internet and uninstall the antivirus and any other protection and disk utilities. Then start the upgrade to Windows 10 but UNCHECK the box to search for updates during install. This, as well as being disconnected from the internet should ensure Windows Setup will not try to mess with drivers before a successful upgrade to Windows 10 is complete. Then reinstall all the drivers starting from the chipset. For recent Intel chipsets (socket 1156 and newer) all INF driver files are compatible to Windows 10, so just install latest version for the respective chipset. For socket 775 you must install Windows 8 or 7 driver is there is no 10 one, but IT WILL work OK in Windows 10. Please do not spread unnecessary panic! After installing the chipset proceed to install graphics and other drivers. Always the preferred version is the latest OEM Windows 10 version, but if there isn't any, Windows 8 and 7 or even Vista should also work OK. After making sure all your devices have updated drivers, it is safe to connect to the Internet and activate Windows. But to avoid Windows Update screwing your drivers, I recommend using the show/hide tool to exclude ALL driver updates before running the first Windows Update. This will make sure Windows Update will only install useful patches and won't screw your working drivers, even if these drivers might be as old as Vista or even XP. Yes, I have installed Windows 10 32-bit to a few old Vista era laptops with Vista drivers (no newer available) and they work FINE. So unless you have done it yourself and have your own experience, please DON'T SCARE OTHERS!

I hope this is crystal clear now. Upgrade is not a disaster, as you try to prove! And a clean-install should not be necessary if your previous Windows installation is not a mess and you do a proper upgrade. Period. I am a Computer Technician, so please let me be more experienced than the average user. I know exactly what I'm doing and suggesting. I have done it myself numerous times.

I'm a bit lost as to what the purpose of your post was? Half the information was a repeat of exactly what I've said in previous posts, as to the other half... I'm not sure why you keep repeating, in capitals mind you, not to scare others... whom do you claim I'm scaring? Simply because you've always done things one way does not mean it's the right way...

You seem to have overlooked the fact a Windows 7/8/8.1 install upgraded to Windows 10 will result in the previous versions of drivers remaining installed in %SystemRoot%. By all means, you could go through the %SystemRoot$\INF folder, manually searching for and matching oemxx.inf drivers to their respective driver installs, then manually clearing the file repository; However, before you'd be able to complete both, Windows 10 could have been clean installed and all drivers installed in the proper order. So yes, technically speaking an upgrade is not required, much the same way as a car tire can be mounted to a rim without using a mounting machine; however, most care about not only doing something the right way the first time, but also doing it in the most efficient, least time consuming way possible.

Here's a rhetorical question for you... If, as you claim, a clean install is not the right way to go, why is it 90%+ of the end users who've clean installed, installing their drivers in the proper order, don't have issues when compared to the 90% of end users who did not clean install and have loads of issues?

I believe that rhetorical question concludes this discussion.

dear JW0914,

• most software bugs show their incorrect behaviour when some environmental conditions exists; in the case of this particular network issue, the fact that 90% of users did not experienced the problem is not a prove that the bug does not exists
• you claim that this is not a bug as with a clean install the problem does not show; I agree with you that many OS issues are related to problems during the upgrade procedure and that a clean install will prevent many problem from happening; however, if my OS is prompting me to upgrade from an older version to Win10, it means that the upgrade us considered to be a standard feature of the OS, as such, is expected to work properly

Cordially
Paolo

To reply your rhetorical question, yes, you should not experience any bugs with a clean installation. That's the whole purpose of doing that, to have a nice clean installation without any issues (if done properly). But you forget the purpose of the upgrade. The only purpose of doing an upgrade is to keep your data and your applications without having to waste too many hours (in most cases a week) to do it all over again! Otherwise, we would simply do a clean install every time there is a new version of Windows released. Why bother with the upgrade? Before you say to have the digital entitlement, I say you don't have to upgrade, you can go straight to the clean-install as described in this tutorial.

So once and for all, the whole and only purpose of doing an upgrade is to avoid reinstalling everything from scratch. And if done properly, there are no issues and there is no reason to do a clean-install afterwards, provided your previous OS was working properly without issues. If all these conditions are met, go for the upgrade without a second thought. If your current OS is already a mess, I suggest the hard way, backup everything and do a clean install. But if and only if you experience issues. Otherwise the common and most logical procedure is to upgrade (unless your current system has only Windows and Office which can be easily reinstalled). Unfortunately, the majority of Windows users have tons of applications and data and a clean-install would take a week! So it is the LAST resort, not panacea!

JW0914 said:

I personally couldn't care less how you or spakanos choose to go about doing things on your PCs, but I am done repeating myself and wasting my time. Continue to believe 1+1=11, continue to have problems because of a failure to adhere to power users all stating the same thing... Clearly the end users having issue after issue know far more about how to do things properly that us users who've done things properly and not encountered any issues. It comes down to basic common sense... either teach yourselves about why drivers matter and how drivers affect Windows when it's upgraded from one version to another or continue to be ignorant and waste hours troubleshooting your failures not to, blindly being led by the blind... it's really your choice, but I'm done wasting my time trying to help you and others fix your own failures to educate yourselves. Cheers =]

Then please stop replying and telling untruthful statements. You CANNOT remove chipset drivers, or Windows will give you a nice BSOD. All, you can do is make sure chipset and other devices are updated after the upgrade to Windows 10 to eliminate issues. Most issues are about outdated or generic (not OEM) drivers. Once you make sure your drivers are updated, there is little or nothing to fear about.

I'll tell it once more since you probably cannot understand it: People upgrade their Windows to avoid reinstalling everything from scratch. That's the whole purpose of the upgrade. To AVOID reinstalling everything one-by-one once again. Unlike you, others have a complex Windows installation with many applications, games, settings, data, whatever. It would take many hours (days) to redo everything again and it will not likely be on the same state as before. They are bound to forget one or two things. So they upgrade their Windows to avoid this hassle. It is your own right to do all this trouble if you want, but we don't want. Please stop trying to persuade us. Mind your own business!

Thank you and have a nice day.

I am portuguese speaker and I could not understand everything. I am having this same problem on Windows 10 (1511). A notebook with windows 10 (10240) works perfectly well. When I downgrade to Windows 8.1, my network come back. Why Microsfot is not pay atention to this???? Anyone could help?

@JW

No offense, but No one is going to deal with having to clean install Win10 after each major update Microsoft releases. I believe they plan on two major updates per year. Even if it was just one, it would be unreasonable. I've seen upgrades go badly, requiring clean installs and I've seen them go well, no problems. The determining factor is how clean and maintained the system was prior to the upgrade attempt. If your OS has been through a couple of upgrades, I'd probably clean install. If you're going from 7 or 8 straight to 10, upgrade and see how it goes. Back your stuff up prior, uninstall security suites, run a malware scan and then proceed with the upgrade.

I ran into the missing protocol error after clean installing Win10 on a toshiba laptop. I performed an in-place upgrade and the problem was fixed from that point on. Something is corrupt within the 1586 install process that is triggering this for some users.

I just had the "One or more network protocols are missing on this computer" issue again. It doesn't happen when I use Defender but only happens when I use a antivirus other than Defender. This is a desktop computer and unplugging the computer and all routers, modems ... and waiting 5 minutes to re-plug everything back in seems to resolve the issue. Do I need to reset my router's security settings after unplugging it ? Is this only a Window's 10 issue ?

One or more network protocols are missing from this computer error.
12/29 my problem with no Internet, Network Sharing & freezing Start Menu began. Uninstalling Avast, fixes it.

Looking for another Anti Virus application that will work? Any luck anyone?
If problem re produces, stuck with Microsoft spying with their Windows Defender.

I also needed a clean wipe as the only way to upgrade from 10240 to 10586.
Microsoft plans are three Threshold upgrades a year. Soon in March you wipe clean again.