Solved Cannot change an IP address other than directly editing the registry

[IRJustman]

Hi, all.

I have run into a situation I wish I knew how to get out of. One of my systems won't allow me to change the IP address (static) or use ipconfig /renew to pull a new one via DHCP (dynamic). If I try to change IPv4 settings, every time I try, it wants me to reboot the machine, and this is regardless of which interface I try it on (ordinarily, there are several additional "interfaces" on this machine, usually pseudo-interfaces software packages provide, though see below on what I did to deal with those and try to eliminate them as possible problems).

The only way I can reliably change the IP address on this system is editing the registry for that particular interface and rebooting.

I've tried the usual

netsh int ip reset blah.txt
netsh winsock reset

stuff. but to no avail. I've also tried updating, uninstalling, then reinstalling the ethernet controller driver, in this case, an on-board RealTek RTL8168. And to be EXTRA safe, I even went so far as to remove any software that creates additional "adapters", e.g. LogMeIn Hamachi, VMware Player, VirtualBox, etc. I'm not even afraid to edit the registry to get rid of all the crap these left behind after I uninstalled them. When they are there, some already have IP addresses assigned to them (e.g. the VirtualBox host-only network has a static, but when I check IPv4 settings, it says it's in DHCP, even though it's not). Hell, I've gone so far as to do this:

netsh int ipv4 uninstall
netsh int ipv4 install

And my machine STILL insists on giving me the finger.

Here's the output of netsh command prompt wizardry when I show then try to disable the interface:

C:\Users\(redacted)>netsh int show int "On-board wired GBE"

On-board wired GBE
   Type:                 Dedicated
   Administrative state: Enabled
   Connect state:        Connected


C:\Users\(redacted)>netsh int set int "On-board wired GBE" disable
An interface with this name is not registered with the router.

The system in question is running Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit.

Also, just so everyone knows, I prefer static IPs. Right now, it's the only way that works since DHCP won't.

Ordinarily, I'm pretty good with stuff like this (in other words, I'm no newbie; fly as high as you feel the need to, and I am not afraid of command lines), but this one has me stumped.

Any ideas?

--IJ.

 

[IRJustman]

*bump?*

 

[Kaktussoft]

netsh int ip reset blah.txt
netsh winsock reset

work fine? Do it again please

[B]netsh  interface[/B]  ip  [B]set[/B]  address  "On-board wired GBE"  [B]dhcp[/B]

No errors?

 

[Kaktussoft]

Service "DHCP-client" is running?
Service "DNS Client" is running?

 

[Kaktussoft]

Changing settings as member of "Network Configuration Operators" needs reboot

 

[Kaktussoft]

Do http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/7539-local-users-groups-manager-open.html to show the groups.
What groups are you member of? Or do:

net  user  [COLOR=red]youraccountname[/COLOR]

 

[IRJustman]

netsh int ip reset blah.txt
netsh winsock reset

work fine? Do it again please

I'm still having issues, but not nearly as bad. The short story is that I was getting "access denied" on the "netsh winsock reset" command, but I did manage to fix it via a repair shell and importing working copies from a working Win7Ult64 system. I'll explain in greater detail below.

[B]netsh  interface[/B]  ip  [B]set[/B]  address  "On-board wired GBE"  [B]dhcp[/B]

No errors?

No errors; actually sets DHCP. That's before and after I did the above.

Service "DHCP-client" is running?
Service "DNS Client" is running?

Running and running respectively.

Changing settings as member of "Network Configuration Operators" needs reboot

May not necessarily apply to me. I'm in the administrators group (see below). However, I'll check my laptop to be sure, and I know that machine works (again, see below).

Do http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/7539-local-users-groups-manager-open.html to show the groups.
What groups are you member of? Or do:

net  user  [COLOR=red]youraccountname[/COLOR]

For myself:

[C:\]net user (redacted)
User name                   (redacted)
Full Name                    (redacted)
Comment                      (redacted)
User's comment
Country code                 000 (System Default)
Account active               Yes
Account expires              Never

(redacted)

Local Group Memberships      *Administrators       *Remote Desktop Users
Global Group memberships     *None

For Administrator:

[C:\]net user administrator
User name                    Administrator
Full Name
Comment                      Built-in account for administering the computer/domain
User's comment
Country code                 000 (System Default)
Account active               Yes
Account expires              Never

(redacted)

Local Group Memberships      *Administrators
Global Group memberships     *None

I only include Aministrator because normally, on a Windows 7 machine, the account is not enabled by default. On my machine, I turned it on so I can test extraordinary cases like this. I tried again as administrator. Same thing.

However, after reviewing your message, and since "netsh winsock reset" was yielding an "Access denied" message and some other reading I had done just prior to this, I decided to go to the extreme of physically removing the \HKLM\System\ControlSet001\Services\Winsock and \HKLM\System\ControlSet001\Services\Winsock2 keys. However, to do THAT, I booted to a repair shell, ran regedit and mounted the system hive to delete those two keys. Otherwise, the keys would be locked. Rebooted normally, but with a broken network. Fixed THAT by getting working keys from a known-working setup, my Win7Ult64 laptop. It's still having problems with the GUI (still wants a reboot), but setting a static DOES work but says it wants a reboot; an ipconfig /all shows the changes took effect immediately. Furthermore, commands on netsh, like:

netsh int set int "On-board wired GBE" enable

actually sees the interface now. That command yielded an "Ok" message.

After this recent round of meddling on my part, on the whole, things look MUCH more encouraging.

I'll check the group memberships on my laptop in a bit and keep you updated.

--IJ.

 

[IRJustman]

Forgot to mention that a "netsh winsock reset" now yields the desired results in the return message, but not QUITE the fullly-desired results. Everything ELSE works, though.

 

[IRJustman]

Checked my laptop. She has the following for my account:

[C:\]net user (redacted)
User name                   (redacted)
Full Name                    (redacted)
Comment                      (redacted)
User's comment
Country code                 000 (System Default)
Account active               Yes
Account expires              Never

(redacted)

Local Group Memberships      *Administrators       *HomeUsers
Global Group memberships     *None

To be fair on the most recent IP change, I haven't tried rebooting just yet. I'll try the reboot to see if it actually did take. If the IP did take, I'll call it done.

--IJ.

 

[IRJustman]

Still no dice. Still wants a reboot, and it "shows" as being DHCP, even though it's static. Does the same even if I'm logged in as administrator. However, the other issues I was having owing to a SERIOUSLY hosed Winsock catalog are gone. I'll continue to look at that other article as well.

--IJ.

 

[Kaktussoft]

Forgot to mention that a "netsh winsock reset" now yields the desired results in the return message, but not QUITE the fullly-desired results. Everything ELSE works, though.

So "netsh winsock reset" works. What "fullly-desired results" are missing?

 

[Kaktussoft]

Still no dice. Still wants a reboot, and it "shows" as being DHCP, even though it's static. Does the same even if I'm logged in as administrator. However, the other issues I was having owing to a SERIOUSLY hosed Winsock catalog are gone. I'll continue to look at that other article as well.

--IJ.

So you gave it a static address succesfully. It asks a reboot, but it was active immediately, no reboot necessary. Did you check registry if ip address is really there?

You reboot and then it was dhcp again..strange. Did something remove the ip address form registry? If so: Edit in registry the ip address manually and look if it keeps the value in registry after reboot.

 

[Kaktussoft]

C:\Users\(redacted)>netsh int set int "On-board wired GBE" disable
An interface with this name is not registered with the router.

Any ideas?

--IJ.

This command 'netsh int set int "On-board wired GBE" disable' has to be run from elevated command prompt!

 

[jobeard]

hmm; I prefer fixed addresses too so I can have special firewall rules for specific ranges of ip addresses.

To effect fixed IPs, I let the DHCP in the router interact with Address Reservation list, using the MAC address of the NIC to predict the desired IP address. As I'm on a laptop, this works well too for hotspot usage as the router is still at home and all that stuff doesn't interfere with hotspot configurations.

 

[IRJustman]

Sorry about the late response; Real Life(R) got in the way.

In any event, I did manage to figure out a lot of my issues. It mainly has to do with permissions on the \HKLM\System\ControlSetxxx\Services\TCPIP key. It turns out that some of the permissions were missing. I read off the permissions from a known-working Windows 7 system, and now I can not only view, but change, the IPv4 configuration just fine.

I notice I can't re-add "Dhcp" as an entity as having permission into the services\Dhcp and services\TCPIP keys. However, setting obtain automatically still seems to work fine. EDIT: I figured this one out finally (thanks, Google!), so now both keys have all pertinent permissions set correctly.

About the only thing left is that I STILL have to reboot to get things, which is now an annoyance but still deal-with-able. I'll refer to the link earlier in the thread for more info.

--IJ.

 

[IRJustman]

And just another update, I can now do a

C:\>netsh int ip reset blah.txt
C:\>netsh winsock reset

without errors (HKLM\System\ControlSetxxx\Services\Winsock and HKLM\System\ControlSetxxx\Services\Winsock2 both had incorrect permissions, but I have since fixed them), but it still isn't fixing this last issue of needing a reboot to "finalize" anything. As far as I can tell, it's still taking my change requests and putting them into effect right away (visible both in ipconfig (/all) and, thanks to my registry permissions jockeying, in TCP/IP settings).

--IJ.

 

[IRJustman]

As of right now, everything is now working as they should. Found that Tweaking.com's Windows Repair (All In One) finished the job by resetting the registry's permissions to a reasonably-close-to-default state (which I now have to bugger up for my own purposes *evil grin*). Now, TCP/IP settings work as they should again.

--IJ.