Networx is not running after the last Win 10 update

After the last Windows 10 update, my old version of Networx no longer worked. So I just downloaded the trial version of the newer one and that also says "Networx is not running" in the system tray. No amount of rebooting, reinstalling, or restarting the program seems to make it work now. I have Windows 10 Home 64-bit and the latest Networx downloaded yesterday.

Can anyone offer some advice on how to get it going?

Julian

That message comes from the taskbar extension that displays usage information directly in the taskbar. The extension depends on the actual NetWorx app, which needs to be running for the extension to function.

So is the NetWorx app running? That is:

• Is there networx.exe process running?
• Is there a notification area icon?
• Can you access application features?

Hi, thanks for the reply.

Task Manager says Networx Application 64 bit is running. There is no notification in the sys tray, I guess you mean the multi-colored icon - except the Networx is not running message.

I cannot right click on the message to access any features.

Thanks.
Julian

This suggests that there may be an issue that prevents NetWorx from completing its initialisation.

My best bet would be that there may be a broken installation of WinPCap on your system. When WinPCap is installed, NetWorx attempts to use it, but things can go awry if the installed instance of WinPCap is not functional.

If you have WinPCap listed as an installed application on your computer, I would recommend uninstalling it to see if that changes anything.
If you don't have it installed, try downloading and installing it from here.
If still no luck, we can build a debug version of NetWorx to see what happens there.

Thanks for the help.

I have uninstalled and reinstalled WinPCap but reinstalling it has errors in the install process. WinPCap says it has "error opening file for writing" - npf.sys, wcap.dll, packet.dll. I have downloaded it a second time and tried installing again but it was the same. Maybe I should delete its directory?

I note that it does not seem to support Win10. Is this the problem?

Anyway, Networx is still not running but after uninstalling WinPCap I could right click on the "not running" message and bring up options but not since I reinstalled WinPCap.

Technically WinPCap is not required for NetWorx to work, so if you don't have other programs that use it, it makes sense to completely remove WinPCap.

This can be done by opening an administrator command prompt and typing the following:

sc delete npf

This will deregister the WinPCap driver and it's best to reboot after this.

Then you can delete the remaining files by typing in the same administrator command prompt:

DEL %WINDIR%\System32\packet.dll %WINDIR%\System32\wpcap.dll %WINDIR%\System32\drivers\npf.sys

With the leftovers of WinPCap gone NetWorx should be operational, you can use the menu and everything else. The taskbar extension should work as well after a reboot.

Hi, well the first line you asked me to enter worked ok in administrator powershell, so I rebooted and tried the second line:

DEL %WINDIR%\System32\packet.dll %WINDIR%\System32\wpcap.dll %WINDIR%\System32\drivers\npf.sys

and it said:

Remove-Item : A positional parameter cannot be found that accepts argument '%WINDIR%\System32\wpcap.dll'.
At line:1 char:1
+ DEL %WINDIR%\System32\packet.dll %WINDIR%\System32\wpcap.dll %WINDIR% ...
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidArgument: (:) [Remove-Item], ParameterBindingException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : PositionalParameterNotFound,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.RemoveItemCommand

so I tried just deleting one thing using:

PS C:\Windows\system32> del packet.dll

and it said:

del : Cannot remove item C:\Windows\system32\packet.dll: Access to the path 'C:\Windows\system32\packet.dll' is denied.
At line:1 char:1
+ del packet.dll
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : PermissionDenied: (C:\Windows\system32\packet.dll:FileInfo) [Remove-Item], UnauthorizedA
   ccessException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : RemoveFileSystemItemUnAuthorizedAccess,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.RemoveItemCommand

Thanks again for your help.

I have tried renaming the three files you mentioned in system32 and system32/drivers to other names but after a reboot Networx still isn't working.

OK, my bad: I had forgotten to uninstall WinPCap again when making the changes. I have done this and Networx is working now. Thanks for helping!

Thank you for letting us know that NetWorx is now working well for you.