OS: WinXP pro
System: Laptop p800MHz, 192Mb Ram, Realtek RTL 8139 NIC

Until a few days ago I was running fine on the University Network, however suddenly I couldn't connect to uni. Internet/Network/Intranet after having used NetSwitcher to change from my other local network to the Uni. network

When I set up the computer to DHCP then it for one takes ages to start up, and after that I can see in the status that it sends 2 packets and receives 1 packets, but still no connection.

I took my housemate's IP (assigned to him on same network) and entered it as a static IP which works fine so I guess it is not a hardware problem.

I have tried IPCONFIG /release and /renew but I get a "already released" and "An error occurred while renewing interface local area connection: Access is denied" respectively.

I have removed all NW protocols except TCP/IP, uninstalled my firewall and virus scanner (hmm should I be saying this?), right-clicked on windows\inf\nettcpip.inf to reinstall my TCP-IP and installed XP again (on top of the old one)
but nothing works.

Is there anyone here who knows what is wrong and/or why it happened?

BTW: Reinstalling XP is the absolute final option for me - there must be other ways to fix it...

have you tried removing all networking components...i mean ALL networking components? do that and disconnect yourself from everything network related. shut down the box and remove all networking components. then reboot. let xp see that there are no networking components to install. then shut down and install the networking components and turn on the box. reinstall all networking components and try it again. another thing to try is to get the dns and wins info from your housemate's box and hard code it into the tcp/ip settings. dhcp will still work this way for you, it just won't give you any dns or wins to use because you've manually assigned those. if those change then you'll need to change those settings manually. when i've encountered similar problems it has been the dns and wins at times.

it sounds to me like netswitcher hosed your setup. i know that it might not have ever done it before, but it looks that way now. your only choice may be a wipe and reinstall.

Thanks Mr. chess_dude
I've hardcoded the WINS ad DNS info and it seems to have worked. Just have to see how short-term a solution it is.