Windows 8 - No network connection

[alexsmith2709]

Got a bit of a weird one, which trying to fix remotely is an added problem!
Its for someone who is working from home who works for the company i have a business contract with.
Ethernet wasnt working for some reason, but this doesnt matter for now, i sent her a USB wifi adapter and now she can connect to her home wifi and has internet connection but chrome throws the following error when trying to connect to HTTPS sites:
NET::ERR_CERT_AUTHORITY_INVALID

The time is correct on the computer and so is the sites certificate (google mail is that main one she needs to access). Also there is no network connection in control panel so i cannot change the connection from public to private to see if this is the cause.

I have been using Teamviewer to remote in to her machine, but given that its a network problem its been quite difficult! I have run complete internet repair with no joy.

Has anyone come across such a problem before? I know Windows 8 is old, but before i suggest running an upgrade i want to check if there is anything else i can do first as i dont want to be trying to guide her through Windows 10 setup over the phone.

 

[GTP]

Have you tried changing the DNS setting on the PC to something like 8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4, 9.9.9.9 or 1.1.1.1?

Are they running Avast A/V by any chance? Uninstall with Geek Uninstaller recommended.

Have you temporarily disabled firewalls?

Also you could temporarily try setting a date/time in the future like March 31 2021

 

[alexsmith2709]

Have you tried changing the DNS setting on the PC to something like 8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4, 9.9.9.9 or 1.1.1.1?

Are they running Avast A/V by any chance? Uninstall with Geek Uninstaller recommended.

Have you temporarily disabled firewalls?

Also you could temporarily try setting a date/time in the future like March 31 2021

Not avast, but AVG, so maybe they've ported some stupid "feature" over to AVG code. I might try completely uninstalling to test and if they really want me to reinstall i can try that too.
I reset windows firewall and disabled AVG. This wouldnt stop the network profile appearing within windows though would it?
I havent tried changing the DNS as i thought it was something more than that as there is no network profile.

 

[Moltuae]

error when trying to connect to HTTPS sites:

Is it possible to confirm whether https access is functioning correctly from another computer on the same network? If other computers are affected, might be a router MTU misconfiguration issue.

Also there is no network connection in control panel so i cannot change the connection from public to private to see if this is the cause.

Run this from an elevated command prompt to make all network connections private:

PowerShell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -command "$nlm = [Activator]::CreateInstance([Type]::GetTypeFromCLSID([Guid]'{DCB00C01-570F-4A9B-8D69-199FDBA5723B}')); $connections = $nlm.getnetworkconnections(); $connections |foreach {if ($_.getnetwork().getcategory() -eq 0) {$_.getnetwork().setcategory(1)}}"

Or run it directly from PowerShell:

$nlm = [Activator]::CreateInstance([Type]::GetTypeFromCLSID([Guid]"{DCB00C01-570F-4A9B-8D69-199FDBA5723B}"))
$connections = $nlm.getnetworkconnections()
$connections |foreach {
    if ($_.getnetwork().getcategory() -eq 0)
    {
        $_.getnetwork().setcategory(1)
    }
}

 

[alexsmith2709]

Is it possible to confirm whether https access is functioning correctly from another computer on the same network? If other computers are affected, might be a router MTU misconfiguration issue.

Other devices work fine. She is currently working using a laptop until i can hopefully fix this.

Run this from an elevated command prompt to make all network connections private:

PowerShell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -command "$nlm = [Activator]::CreateInstance([Type]::GetTypeFromCLSID([Guid]'{DCB00C01-570F-4A9B-8D69-199FDBA5723B}')); $connections = $nlm.getnetworkconnections(); $connections |foreach {if ($_.getnetwork().getcategory() -eq 0) {$_.getnetwork().setcategory(1)}}"

Or run it directly from PowerShell:

$nlm = [Activator]::CreateInstance([Type]::GetTypeFromCLSID([Guid]"{DCB00C01-570F-4A9B-8D69-199FDBA5723B}"))
$connections = $nlm.getnetworkconnections()
$connections |foreach {
    if ($_.getnetwork().getcategory() -eq 0)
    {
        $_.getnetwork().setcategory(1)
    }
}

I'll hopefully be able to connect to her shortly so will try this. The only command line/powershell code i found was for making a specific connection private, but as none existed it didnt work, hopefully this will.

Edit: Tried it and got this error:

Exception calling "GetNetwork" with "0" argument(s): "Catastrophic failure
(Exception from HRESULT: 0x8000FFFF (E_UNEXPECTED))"
At line:1 char:183
+ ...  |foreach {if ($_.getnetwork().getcategory() -eq 0)
{$_.getnetwork().setcategory ...
+                    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : NotSpecified: (:) [], MethodInvocationException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : ComMethodTargetInvocation

 

[alexsmith2709]

I fixed it. Running these two commands and rebooting did the job:

net localgroup administrators networkservice /add
net localgroup administrators localservice /add

This also got the network connection back in control panel too