DHCP, Windows Firewall and RPC won't start

Previously, I've been wrestling with an issue of RPC server not available, DHCP won't turn on, and Windows Firewall won't turn on.
Been all over the internet and have found no solution. THe result of these conditions is that I have no wireless access to the internet.

Yesterday I reinstalled Vista Business again. Well, I've been watching very
closely...because this issue has been recurring and instead of just going to
system restore I'd really like to fix it.



Yesterday when everything was working fine, it wasn't stuck on "identifying".
Next to "Access" it said "Local and Internet" instead of "Local only".
Network discovery was off.
File Sharing was off.

Expanding the image above:



Now network discovery is "Custom" and Filesharing is "On".
If I tick off the Network discovery and Tick Off the Filesharing,
the machine works on it a little bit and then "Operation Aborted".
I am unable to turn off the network discovery or filesharing.

When I tick off to Changes Settings , and then tick Network ID,



I left the computer on last night and this is how it was when I woke up this morning.
(By the way, it went into hibernation. This had given me the thought previously, "oh, okay, it's
hibernating and not accepting ICMP requests." I had changed it to accept ICMP requests through
the Firewall. That never helped either).

So this is where it's at right now.

I looked in the logs and this is what and when it happened:

Log Name: System
Source: Microsoft-Windows-Dhcp-Client
Date: 5/1/2010 2:04:12 AM
Event ID: 1002
Task Category: None
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: GeekSlayer-PC
Description:
The IP address lease 192.168.1.101 for the Network Card with network address 00C0A8C7B645 has been denied by the DHCP server 0.0.0.0 (The DHCP Server sent a DHCPNACK message).

On my desktop I released and renewed, on the NETGEAR's WPN824 Wireless Router I also released and renewed. On the laptop, I am unable to ipconfig release and renew
because the RPC server is unavailable.

[Originally, the laptop had XP Home Media Edition, I upgraded to Vista Home and this situation was occurring then also. Subsequently, I upgraded to Vista Business and it's still happening. I've clean installed Vista several times and it works for a while and then
the above situation occurs. Thank you for your considered and deliberate assistance.]

first check your router and netcard for faults and correct drivers if needed, and check all services are set to install defaults. check the router and see if the dhcp lease time is set to at least 24 hours, its worth a try resetting the routers firmware just in case its bugged out. another thing to try is to change the routers ip range and channel just in case theirs a conflict with another in range. you can also turn off dhcp on the router and pcs and just use a static ip, small downside is that you,ll have to setup a static ip on visitors pc.

Thanks. I'll start on that and report back.

Went through everything you suggested. WHen I was stumbling around in the Netgear router, I reset it to default factory, and restarted my laptop...For some reason, I don't quite
understand, the computer quit being "stuck on stupid" recognized each other... and I was able to get in
and modify the settings in my Control Panel again and now it's working.

I think there may have been an IP conflict with the DHCP ... and the request was rejected and that is why the laptop couldn't get off of "analysing"... I guess.

If it happens again, could you recommend any logs that I could post so we can get to the bottom of it?


Thank you for your assistance and patience.
I guess you can list this as fixed... for now.