Ok I was woke up this morning by my better half saying that the computer was taking ages to log in and when it did it was popping up error messages. The main error message/problem was:

Failed to connect to a windows service

Windows could not connect to the System Event Notification Service service. This problem prevents limited users from logging on to the system. As an administrative user, you can review the System Event Log for details about why the service didn’t respond.”

So I booted up the laptop and began Googling for fixes. Searching for "failed to connect to a windows service" returns a ridiculous amount of results. I found multiple fixes (changing Remote Registry setting, manually setting network IP addres etc), none of which sorted my problem out :cry:

Anyway I finally found a solution that worked (for me anyway).

Firstly we need to run the Command prompt with administrator privledges.

  1. Click Start then click on All Programs
  2. Now click on Accessories
  3. Right click on Command Prompt and select ‘Run as administrator‘.

or

  1. Click Start then click Computer (or open it from your desktop if thats where it is).
  2. Go to your C drive (or whatever drive you have Windows installed on)
  3. Open up the Windows folder
  4. Find and open the System32 folder.
  5. Find the file cmd (might be shows as cmd.exe).
  6. Right click on it and select ‘Run as administrator‘.

Once the command prompt window opens type ‘NETSH WINSOCK RESET CATALOG‘ and press the Enter/Return key.

It then says you have to reboot and after that my computer was working fine :-D no more "failed to connect to a windows service"

Now I’m not saying this will work for you but it definately fixed my problem.

And please remember I am on Windows Vista not XP nor 2000.

<edit 15th March 2009>Been informed that this should also work on XP just wont need step 6</edit>