Right clicking the network adapter causes Windows explorer crash

[ChrisP350]

While doing some AV testing for my company (junior net admin here) I installed Sophos endpoint protection to my computer (joined to a domain), Sophos didn't automatically uninstall Vipre AV and i'm assuming they didn't play nice immediately because all hell broke loose:

My computer slowed to a crawl, no problem.. I just got rid of excess processes.
Opened control panel to uninstall Vipre AV which resulted in my computer locking up.
Hard reset the PC and when it booted back into windows it showed my network connection was lost.
Right clicking the network adapter causes windows explorer to crash.
Event Viewer wont run because the service wont start, it wont let me manually start the service.
Finally after many hours of googling I was able to uninstall both AV products, rebooted and my services/network adapter issues is still present.

Ran sfc /scannow 3 times, each came back clean
CCleaner registry cleaner didn't come up with anything of notable importance
Uninstalled and reinstalled the network adapter drivers, no dice.
No backup or restore exists of this PC.
Executed a "clean boot" via msconfig. (turning services off, startup programs off etc)

At this point I'm just looking to reinstall windows, any advice or further suggestions before i nuke and repave?
I don't have access to the dump files at the moment.

Thanks for looking!

 

[GokAy]

You can try:
- complete uninstall both AVs (they may have remnants) - Uninstallers (removal tools) for common Windows antivirus software - ESET Knowledgebase
- try restoring the services to defaults (if they are a few) - http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/236709-services-restore-default-services-windows-7-a.html
- run in elevated cmd:

netsh winsock reset

- or if that fails run as admin (Download Complete Internet Repair - MajorGeeks) - select options:
-- reset Internet Protocol
-- repair Winsock

If all else fails, I would normally say first try a repair install - http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3413-repair-install.html
But perhaps for you best is to just clean install - http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1649-clean-install-windows-7-a.html or http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/219487-clean-reinstall-factory-oem-windows-7-a.html#post1839164) depending on custom/OEM PC.