You should try to repair/reset Winsock in Windows if you are having problems with your network controller. I’m having some major problems with my internet connection at the momemt. Sometimes, I can’t seem to enable/disable the local area connection adapter.
If you also regularly have connectivity issues and your network connections is acting crazy, you might want to do some troubleshooting. Let’s rock!
1. General Troubleshooting Before Resetting Winsock
In general, you should always make sure that your hardware is working properly and you don’t have any corrupt/damage files on your drive. Plus it’s a good habit to update your drivers frequently.
- clean your PC of viruses, trojans
- run a chkdsk /f /r to make sure you don’t have any disk erros
- run sfc.exe /scannow to validate your system files
- install latest network drivers
2. Reset/Renew TCP/IP connection:
The first commands you should try when you encounter network connectivity issues are:
ipconfig /release
ipconfig /renew
/release will terminate all of your TCP/IP connections
/renew will establish a new TCP/IP connection
Sidenote: Both commands only work if your network adapter is configured for DHCP. DHCP will auto-assign you an IP-address.
Finally, if that doesn’t work you could try to reset your winsock catalog.
3. Repair & Reset Winsock Catalog
I wasn’t even able to remove my NVIDIA network controller. My theory was that my winsock entries were somehow damaged.
Winsock entries tells Windows how to access your network services. Additionally, your TCP/IP protocol can be corrupted. The TCP/IP protocol is a stack of 4 layers that includes several transport layers, but when this stack is corrupt you will constantly have connectivity issues.
netsh winsock reset catalog (reset winsock entries)
netsh int ip reset reset.log hit (reset TCP/IP stack)
This command works in Windows 7, 8 and 10 but might also work on Windows 11
Winsock Registry Keys
Advanced users will find the winsock registry keys at:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Winsock]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Winsock2]