Hi guys, got a problem that's getting stranger by the minute.

As you know, Andrea has an illness that affects her memory now & then, so I normally let her have main access to all media in the lounge & have even built her, her own computer.

So with the rare exception of a film/program on tv I wish to see, I normally use my workstation for most media.

On accessing it several days ago to watch a program stored on server, ALL media players cannot see the server, so checked via network center & all clients/server shows up. Accessed the shared folders(WHS automatically installs this folder on all clients that can access WHS), no problems, all files shown up.

So opened Internet access. perfect, no problems experienced. Opened Win Explorer & can only see workstation, other systems & server not seen. Checked all settings/configurations & all ok.

Then thought, oh well, let's restore via WHS, that should resolve the issue. It did not. Spent last 3 days attempting all backups from yesterday to original installation. All restores were successful, EXCEPT that all had the same problem. Went through all win 7 manuals/online help & then MS's own Win 7 forum(for which there has not been a single reply to date), & cannot find any idea as to how to resolve this.

Ran scandisk,AV, malwarebytes, even tried using repair mode via original installation disk & no problems uncovered. Checked router(which I can access from workstation with no problem), all settings ok, ip address ok. Even tried the cmd "ip config" & it's parameters & again no problem, but still can't see network.

Would really appreciate if any network guru's here to give me some pointers to as to what may be causing this. At 1st, thought that it may be a problem with the NIC, so swapped it over to the 2nd onboard one & still experience the same problem. Tried disabling both & installing a seperate card but again, same problem.

This really is weird & can only think of one remaining option which I don't really want to do yet as it will take ages to get back to the way it was.....a clean fresh install.

edit: Even worse now, on rebooting, boinc came up requesting I attach to a project...it should be running 3. it's showing no projects or tasks.....

Cause of the problem still remains unknown, but the issue is resolved.

After much frustation, just wiped the hd, reformatted & tried a restore before having to reinstall all programs & data.

Restore worked perfectly & I'm beginning to think that an MS update is the culprit rather than an infection which was suggested.

... a man after my own heart - if it can't be fixed in under an hour, reformat and reinstall!! Thank God for backup drives!!

Normally, when a problem like this crops up, if I'm still trying to resolve after an hour, I stop. Then backtrack via system restore which I have found useful with XP/Vista. However, I think there is a major problem with Win 7 - A possible bug in the coding for system restore or Win 7 is vulnerable to the simplist of infections.

For the past several weeks have been having problems with Win 7 on various systems & every time I try system restore there is no restore point.

This I found unusal as just before Patch Tuesday, I always create a manual restore point (no need to explain why, I think we're all aware of that infamous day...lol). also, through bitter experience, I always check a day or 2 afterwards that it's there.

But, whenever a serious problem has cropped up & I wish to restore, it's gone. All I can say is thank god for WHS, not only does it automatically backup every system on the network, you can create manual backups as well. Also, you can set the maximum time to keep daily/weekly/monthly backups - I have each set on 3 months. As well as that, you can set it to permanently keep backups so that automatic backup cleanup does not delete them.

Andrea's machine caused a weird one last week, kept BSOD'ing, so tried restoring via WHS & WHS kept stating no initialised disks found. After a day or so, swapped drives & restored, problem solved. As a test, tried it on several other systems....same problem. Added drive to workstation as a data drive, no problem. As it's only 2 months old, getting it exchanged as I think it's faulty firmware on the drive.

With no changes made to any system in the past several months, beginning to think that the last Patch Tuesday broke something, as I'm having nothing but problems with Win 7 since then. XP & Vista machines are running normal.

Worst case for me is MS & NVidia......just cannot get any of the latest drivers to work properly - reverted to 185.85 & 182.50 for my 9500GT cards.

I haven't played with WHC yet - is it worth the cost?
I maintain a household network of 4 workstations plus 2 laptops - then whatever I am rebuilding/building/fixing at the time.
I've tried windows 7 twice now with erratic results (see patch tuesday!) - staying with XP for the foreseeable future.

Yes it is. At the time of it's initial release, it was £89.99, currently selling for £80/£85. Well worth it as it has saved my bacon on numerous occasions.

What I did was to get each rig running smoothly, then added it to the Home Server before any other programs/updates installed, that way, any problem, just restore to previous backup. Also, good for streaming media anywhere in the house.