While trying to change a network card I found that my Network properties applet no longer works properly.

"Remove"ing or checking an item's "Properties" works fine, but clicking on "add" and trying to add a "Protocol" for an adapter returns absolutely nothing. Ditto so I've found for "Client" and "Service". Adding an "Adapter" brings up an applet to add a device, but that's the only one of the four options that does work.

For the moment I've removed the new NIC and placed the old one back in getting everything working by restoring yesterday's registry backup.

Is there a way to get this applet working again or reinstalling Windows' networking without doing a complete reinstallation of Windows itself?