It started when I went to Google something, like I do so often (hence Google used as a verb). I was greeted by the following cheery message:
Their antivirus and spyware links point to download.com, so I do what seemed sensible at the time. I restricted both lists to free (not "free to try") software, sorted it by user ranking (highest rated at the top), and downloaded and installed the first few useful seeming programs from each category. One such program was named Dynamic Security Agent 2.0 (henceforth, DSA2), and it sounded innocuous enough from the description.
Fast forward a bit and I've now installed AVG and Avast, have upgraded Spybot and Ad-Aware 2007, and am installing DSA2. I've decided to install it last since their blurb on Download.com says "DSA incorporates anomaly detection components that baseline normal computer operation and detect unacceptable deviations from typical use." If that's true, I want it to consider the other software I installed to be part of the baseline, and not nag me each time I install antivirus software. It's also about this time I head to bed, so I leave the spyware scanners running and AVG is still doing its complete scan in the background. It completely fails to register that I double clicked the installer (twice even) and nothing ever happened.
When I wake up, the scanning is done, DSA still hadn't presented an installer, and I decide to reboot, to let Spybot finish cleaning house (I actually had to boot into Safe Mode to get a particularly nasty bit of malware that had installed itself as a driver. Then I rebooted again.) One of the first things I notice is that I don't have an internet connection any more. Running through the list of normal offenders, I find that my DSL modem and router are neither one the cause--I can ping various things from the router fine--and the daemons running on the router aren't either--I can ping those same things from my file server (meaning DHCP and DNS are working on the router as well). So the problem is on the Windows box, the machine I had just rebooted after scanning completed.
I fire up a command prompt and run ipconfig. I have a 169.254.x.x address, meaning that Windows APIPA kicked in because DHCP failed (i.e., it gave me an IP address that would only be useful if I were running an ad hoc network with no DHCP). What's peculiar about this is that I know (above) that DHCP is working as is all the hardware between this machine and the router issuing DHCP leases. I test the easiest thing first: I run ipconfig /release followed by ipconfig /renew. After approximately five forevers, it tells me that the DHCP server could not be contacted. I check Network Connections and see that my Local Area Connection is set to obtain IP automatically and determine DNS servers automatically. I check Device Manager and all looks well.
Has my NIC gone out? Yet it has a link light at both ends. I plug the known-working file server into the switch port that my Windows box was connected to, have it DHCP again, and test via ping again. The port works fine. I swap the cables back and try a USB NIC I have (actually the Wii-branded one, which I know works because my Wii was using it). One irritating driver download/transfer/install later, and I'm able to confirm that it's not the NIC, as this other NIC behaves the same way (driver up and running, link light on, yet refuses to DHCP). At this point I know it's not a hardware issue, as I've tested all the hardware between the client and the server (explicitly or inductively--I can't actually take the NIC out and try it in another computer as it's on the motherboard).
That leaves software. Specifically, that leaves (presumably) system software, as the only application software I've installed is known to be good and safe, right? Bad assumption. Not particularly wanting to troubleshoot Windows internals at the moment, I decide to try the easy way out. I dig out a Windows XP SP2 CD and set about repairing my installation. That's the third repair option, by the way, not the "press F2" one at the beginning, and not the Recovery Console when it offers that--you pass those and act like you want to install Windows, then it detects an existing install and offers the option to repair it. I mention that because it's not at all intuitive, and you might care, if you've read this far. Skipping past the fun update and driver issues that caused for me, let's just say that didn't help at all. Booting into a "repaired" XP, I find a 169.254.x.x address waiting for me again.
Continue reading, with part two.
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