Can a Windows 7 repair fix a very specific networking problem?

[450125]

I'll start by listing three posts over the past two years that give a LOT of background here:

• http://www.sevenforums.com/network-...access-shared-printer-files-home-network.html
• http://www.sevenforums.com/network-sharing/209836-s-not-printer-s-network-error-code-0x80070035.html
• http://www.sevenforums.com/network-...070035-redux-i-am-getting-battier-minute.html

They go from earliest post to most recent, and each later post back-references its predecessors.

The simple background is that a Windows 7 laptop, now on its third owner in our house (two daughters and now wife), works 100% great, no malware - we check religiously and "compute smartly" - EXCEPT that, about two years ago, it stopped recognizing our home network, the computers on it, and thus lost its ability to print from the only home printer we have, that is connected to one of those computers.

And I've tried a bunch of stuff - common sense, picked up from IT people I know, from google, certainly from this forum, and all pretty documented in the threads above - and though what I've tried has worked seemingly universally for others, it's not worked for me.

So here's my question now (aside from the perpetual question, which is just how do I fix this?): Does a "Windows 7 repair installation" have a reasonable shot at fixing this?

Mind you, the computer worked fine for its first 5-6 months "out of the box" and newly configured, then this function, and this function alone, just suddenly disappeared from it (and yes, one of the first things I did, upon initial discovery, was a system restore back to a date where the function was known to work - this did not fix the problem). And mind you, this annoyance is the ONLY noticeable failing in the computer's performance. After two years, I'd think if we had malware, compromised/degraded hardware, etc., some "other shoe" would have dropped.

So if there's a real chance that a Windows 7 repair installation could fix this, please guide me through the steps, specific to this problem.

And if there's not, I think I might break down and spend a couple hundred at a repair shop, since I've tried all the 101, 201, 401-level things I can think of or research, and none have worked.

 

[andrew129260]

Here you go:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3413-repair-install.html