Wifi adapter bluescreens Win10 after recent update

The wifi on my (7-yr-old) laptop died last week. I plan to replace it very soon but I needed to limp it along a bit longer. I bought a USB wifi adapter (TP-Link TL-WN725N V2) and it worked perfectly with the standard drivers, better than the original wifi. Happy guy.

Then earlier this week my laptop upgraded Win10, and it bluescreened when it rebooted. Much less happy.

On a hunch I pulled the WN725N and Windows booted right up. Plug in the WN725N and bam! Instant bluescreen.

I googled a driver-download page and downloaded http://static.tp-link.com/res/down/s...N_V_160412.zip. That was supposedly the Win10 driver, but the .inf file said it only went up to Win8. But I tried it, and the installer said "Adapter not found. Please plug in your adapter." But if I plug it in, my laptop craters.

I went to http://www.tp-link.com/us/download/T...5N.html#Driver and downloaded the Win10 driver there (http://static.tp-link.com/TL-WN725N_...70726_Wins.zip). It looked more up-to-date, but it had the same problem -- it wouldn't install until the adapter was plugged in.

I tried plugging in an ooold LInksys adapter (WUSB600N) and it also immediately bluescreened. So I don't think it's purely a problem with the TP-Link.

Help! Any suggestions where to go from here? I need my wifi back!

Thank you sir!

I powered down, removed battery, held power button 25 seconds, powered up. Internal wifi adapter was already disabled. Tried plugging in the wifi adapter, and boom.

I don't think I have any communication software. I do however have several virtual network adapters created by VMware, and a TAP adapter -- I think it was created by my VPN software? (VPN.ac. I was not running it before when I tested the wifi adapter.)

Then I booted into safe mode. Plugged in wifi adapter, no boom. I tried to install the second driver I mentioned above (the one ending in 70726_Wins.zip) but nothing happened. The cursor would spin for a second, then nothing. So I installed the first driver. Rebooted into non-safe mode, and it crashed upon booting.

So it sounds like you think I have a software conflict, and I'm going to need to work through the process to isolate the culprit. Joy. I can't do that tonight but I'll get to it as soon as I can. Does the fact that two very different USB adapters both caused the bluescreen tell us anything?

BTW, wow it's fast to boot into safe mode!! It usually pauses at a black screen for over a minute. Another culprit I need to track down...

Gary

Caledon Ken said:

Please boot and uninstall any wifi adapters in device manager.

Ummm. So that would include: (see pic below)

150Mbps Wireless 802.11bgn Nano (my previous wifi dongle, before it broke)
Intel(R) Centrino(R) Wireless-N (the internal wifi, which usually doesn't work)
Two Microsoft Wi-Fi adapters
TP-LINK Wireless USB Adapter (the driver I just installed this evening)

...right? Any others?

EDIT: Aha! You were right! I uninstalled the above adapters and rebooted. Plugged in the wifi dongle, and no boom! I tried to install the second driver above, but it still complains that I already have a driver installed -- possibly the one that Windows auto-installed when I rebooted. (Realtek RTL8188EU Wireless LAN 802.11n USB 2.0 Network Adapter -- which is very recent, just updated 11/29/17.) But that one seems to be working OK, so unless you recommend trying to install the TP-LINK driver, I think I'll just say "it ain't broke, don't fix it!"

Thanks Ken!!

Ughhghhh

The latest force-fed Windows update blew up on reboot. And, surprise surprise, it worked just fine if I removed the wifi dongle.

At least I know how to fix it now. I removed all the wifi devices and rebooted and now everything is hunky-dory. Apparently I have to plan on doing that every time Microsoft """improves""" WIndows for me.