Domain and Workgroup Greyed out 1

[DrB0b]

Hello all,
First post not sure if its in the right spot.
On only one of my XP Pro SP2 machines, as of yesterday started to have an issue connecting to a mapped network drive. After some digging I noticed in the Computer Properties that everything was greyed out. Couldn't change the name, network id, domain, or workgroup. There is only one Administrator account on this machine and yes Im logged in as it. Ive checked the "workstation" and "net logon" services and they are running. Also "server" service is running. The tick mark is checked next to the "Client for MS Networks". No other issues are observed with this machine other than that so Im gunshy to call it a virus/malware. Ping works fine to and from it except for when trying to ping it by its conical name. You can access all files on each of the servers and can surf the net just fine.
If I reboot into Safe Mode, I can change the properties to rejoin the domain and reboot and everything works fine for an hour/day then back to square one.
Hoping someone else ran into this and knew what to do cause Ive tried a few with limited success.
Thanks all

 

[DrB0b]

Also found out that the Windows Firewall/Internet Connection Sharing is Set to automatic but isnt running. I had to "uninstall" and reset the firewall which brought it back for about 8 hrs.
Back in the same boat....

 

[goombawaho]

Remove Client for Microsoft Networks, reboot, reinstall. Joy???

That's kind of crazy and hard to explain, so I'll tell you to go back to the basics if the above doesn't work. I see quite a few posts like yours out there and not many slam dunk solutions.

1. Hard drive test
2. Memory test
3. Malware scan (malwarebyte's anti-malware then maybe combofix)
4. SFC /SCANNOW

I know that 1 and 2 are unlikely based on the description. I'm just trying to start at square one and move from hardware to software as being the source of the problem.

 

[DrB0b]

Thanks for the reply,
Tried uninstalling and reinstalling the services to "no" avail. Once they are restarted the name and domain/workgroups comes back but they are eventually stopped by something. But I can't restart the "Windows Firewall/ICS" it says access is denied. I can get around it by uninstalling and reinstalling but it is being stopped by something. Thanks for the malware tip, im running SB S&D right now and it has picked up 2 things one of which sound like the culprit.
Ill keep ya posted
P.S. tried scannow and it came back clean

 

[goombawaho]

Personally, I don't trust Spybot. I'd run what I recommended in addition (at least MBAM) and then I could put my stamp of approval on your machine as "clean".

 

[flyboytim]

Check the IP protocols which are running - is IPv6 checked? Are there other protocols which you may not have known about also running?

Do you actually run IPv6? Do you need to? Could an automatic update have possibly turned this on?

Can you run the tests at

http://test-ipv6.com

or

http://ipv6-test.com

?

Are the network bindings for the adapter correct for IPv4? (see the tutorial here:

http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_tutorials/optimize-network-connections-windows-xp.html)

if the other protocols are not used, remove their bindings.

From the command prompt, can you see the address of the other PC in the arp tables with the command arp -a

Can you ping the ip address of the computer you want to connect with:

ping 192.168.1.101 or something similar using the real IP address

can you do the same with the name of the computer:

ping PC-Dave or whatever the computername is?

theres probably much more, but that's a start

http://www.fxxxingcomputers.co.uk

 

[DrB0b]

FIXED:
Thanks for the additional input. Spybot found the threat and after it was completely removed, all services functioned normally.

As far as the IPV6, its not used nor running.
Ping works completely fine now, the only issue it had before was getting another PC to ping the troubled PC's conical name, the IP ping worked fine. This does make sense tho if the ICS protocol/service isnt up and running which was the case here.
Thanks again guys