Can't connect to networks. Network icon on taskbar missing.

russbriggs · 30 Oct 2016

everything was working fine earlier today. I was playing GTA V online so I was definitely connected. when I exited the game, the network icon on the taskbar was gone. if I open the Notification Center and click network from there no available networks show up. in my settings, the network icon is toggled on. something really bizarre is that before signing in, if I click on the network icon at the bottom of the screen, all the available networks show up, but if I try clicking one, it takes forever to connect and then tells me my access is limited. this is really frustrating as I've spent the last 3 hours looking on my phone for solutions, none of which have worked. any response would be greatly appreciated

I also thought I'd mention that under Control Panel > Network and Internet > Network and Sharing Center there is a heading titled "Unknown" and under it read "the dependency service or group failed to start"

Bree · 30 Oct 2016

Try clicking on Start then on the Power button and choose Restart. A full restart from cold is often a quick cure for 'odd' problems like this. A 'shut down' may not be sufficient if 'fast start up' is enabled (which it is by default).

russbriggs · 30 Oct 2016

Bree said:

Try clicking on Start then on the Power button and choose Restart. A full restart from cold is often a quick cure for 'odd' problems like this. A 'shut down' may not be sufficient if 'fast start up' is enabled (which it is by default).

I've restarted it multiple times along with trying various things I've found on the Internet for similar but not exact symptoms, none of which worked

Bree · 30 Oct 2016

Do you have a restore point you can go back to from before this problem occurred?

russbriggs · 30 Oct 2016

Bree said:

Do you have a restore point you can go back to from before this problem occurred?

unfortunately no. I'm really tempted to buy an external hard drive and remove everything that's important and reinstall a fresh copy of Windows. I've had a number of issues with this laptop in that past that I think could all be resolved by a restore. I'm still going to search for a solution though