Error modifing network card in Windows Vista - property sheet disabled

Have you tried restarting?

You may need to uninstall VMWare in Safe Mode (and as Admin) before trying again.

Yes I am the admin (both local and network) and even tried to uninstll and re-install logged in as the local admin. Right now VMware is not on my system, however i cant make any modifications to my existing network card because i get the this error...

Some of the controls on this property sheet are disabled becuase one or more other network property sheets are already open. To use these controls, close all these properry sheets and then reopen this one.

Is UAC active?  If so, you may want to turn it off for you Admin account to see what happens.

No that is turned off as well...

Is there any logs worth mentioning?

Remember, with Vista just because you're in the Administrator's local Group doesn't mean you can do everything as yourself.  Much of Vista requires running things as local Admin.

No VMware is not even installed anymore... and all I am trying to do now is just modify my computers network card (to look at the IP address for example), as soon as i clicked on the network card and selected properties the error comes up... Only logs i can think of would be the vista event log.. nothing in there...

OK, I understand things now.  I wasn't aware it was removed and the issue exists with your normal NIC properties.

In Device Manager uninstall the NIC.
Reboot.
Try again.

If this fails too, then boot into Safe Mode and remove all network cards from Device Manager - be sure to "Show Hidden devices" to make sure you're getting them all.  Reboot.  

The PnP Manager should reinstall the NIC and fix anything out of the ordinary.

Oh I am VERY nervous about this... When I was working with the VMware users group last week about one of their suggestions was just that... remove all network cards in your system and reboot... well 6 hours later I still was not able to get a network card installed (similar problems)... i was about this far | | from formatting the drive and re-installing Vista when i came across the restore... i knew the system restore was not very good in XP (at least any of my experiences with it)... but i was able to restore to a point before removing my network cards and everything has been okay with the exception of modifying my existing NIC.

Why?  If VMWare is gone, then Vista will find and reinstall the NIC for you.  If you need drivers because it's a card not supported then just make sure they're on the C drive and extracted so you can point to them when prompted.

There is no magic in reinstalling the NIC, it should be quite painless.

How do you expose the "show hidden devices"

In Computer Management, select View>Show Hidden Devices.

Wow i have a bunch in the hidden...

Cisco Systems VPN Adapter
Cisco Systems Deterministic Network Enhancer Miniport
Cisco Systems Virtual Machine Network Services Driver
Intel(R) PRO/100 VE Network Connection
Intel(R) PRO/100 VE Network Connection - Deterministic Network Enhancer Miniport
Intel(R) PRO/100 VE Network Connection - Virtual Machine Network Services Driver
Microsoft ISATAP Adapter
isatap.<mydomain>.com
RAS Async Adapter
Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface
WAN MiniPort (IP)
WAN MiniPort (IP) - Deterministic Network Enhancer Miniport
WAN MiniPort (IPv6)
WAN MiniPort (IPv6) - Deterministic Network Enhancer Miniport
WAN MiniPort (L2TP)
WAN MiniPort (PPPOE)
WAN MiniPort (PPTP)

My actual NIC is the Intel(r) Pro/100 VE Network Connection...

Should i uninstall all of these items ir just the one that is my network card?

Well I attempted to remove the network cards you advised me on, and started getting errors uninstalling...  So I just bit the bullet and restored a ghost image I had of my drive before I installed the VMware beta (which is where i think my problems started) and now I am able to modify my network cards again...   I even installed the release version of VMware v6.0 and the problems I had with that software are gone now as well...

Thank you very much for all your help...