So a few days ago MSBlast ripped me a new one. Or tried to, it exploited a security hole I had more or less patched already, so although I was infected I didn't see the string of reboots that many others did. I kicked its ass without breaking stride, in fact.
Then I tried to upgrade my windows and boy, that's a bad call. Or rather, trying to change your registry key so you COULD upgrade is a bad idea. Basically all my settings and config were lost, so my networking went down. Here's what I learned after no less than three solid days of working on it:
Windows Networking Sucks. Here's why: It doesn't update all the settings reliably every time. Some settings are only set by certain procedures, so while the first-time setup might set a networking flag to A, for example, another procedure might set it to B. Trying to change it back to A might be tricky if, and this is the case, some parts of the network setup utilities don't do their fucking job.
Bottom line: Windows networking will randomly set your shit up based on what utilities you run, what values you change, and in what order you do it. Fuck you, microsoft - your software is shoddy and I consider the successes I've had with it to be a result of only luck and my unnatural skills.
Mostly luck.