windows not saving profiles

For the second time in two months, my 3 month old Dell latitude laptop (win 7 professional 64 bit) loses its saved wireless profiles. I have to input the ssid password each time I need to connect to a secure network. I've called Dell support and their first solution is to reinstall the OS- I have no inentions of doing that. The other fix they suggested is to go to C:\\ProgramData\Microsoft\Wlansvc\Profiles. Highlight profile folder and on the top options you'll see something that says ownership. Click on it and that would allow the profiles to be back on again. What would cause me to lose all the saved wireless profiles and what is the permanent fix? Thanks.

Mark

Do you by any chance experience this problem on a computer which has the "Intel PROSet/Wireless ZeroConfig Service" or a similarly awful wlansvc replacement installed and enabled?

Disabling said service fixed the problem for me. No more disappearing profiles.

It has a Dell wireless 1504 card installed. I did not see anything that looks like Intel PROSet/Wireless ZeroConfig Service when I looked at control panel-> administative tools-> services.

phoenixmark said:

It has a Dell wireless 1504 card installed. I did not see anything that looks like Intel PROSet/Wireless ZeroConfig Service when I looked at control panel-> administative tools-> services.

I've read multiple complaints about the same problem but with no common resolution to the problem.


Basically Windows can't really do this on it's own and it's likely there is something installed on this machine that is creating the issue.

A clean boot or starting up in safe mode with networking may help to isolate the issue.

I found a way to duplicate the problem. It occurs anytime I need to input a password for a secure connection that I've never used before. After I input the password, everything works. It is the next time I boot the conputer, that the issue of not savings the profiles occurs and I have to "take ownership" of the profiles folder. After I do this, I have no problems until I access the next secure connection that I've never used before.

phoenixmark said:

I found a way to duplicate the problem. It occurs anytime I need to input a password for a secure connection that I've never used before. After I input the password, everything works. It is the next time I boot the conputer, that the issue of not savings the profiles occurs and I have to "take ownership" of the profiles folder. After I do this, I have no problems until I access the next secure connection that I've never used before.

In that case you have a corrupted user profile. To fix this you basically need to create a new user profile then move the files to this new profile via the directions in the following link which must be followed precisely. :)

Fix a corrupted user profile - Windows Help

Thanks for the link. I need to read it completely as it may be above my skill level.