Cannot get network in Vista, and network applications fail to start

So, I like 7, and I liked Vista. I never had to repair a vista machine,until last week. Now I have 2, and regular XP routes don't work.
For the important machine..MINE. I put the computer to sleep by mistake (I usually turn it off) and when I went to use it I press the power button, which made it come up, and then crash almost instantly. Awesome, BSOD, after that I had to force restart and the network never work again. Steam crashes, Messenger live does too, and the PC takes a lot more time to boot (while it waits for this applications to crash I guess)
System restore did not help, since the only restore point was from after the crash (I only had 40GB free of a 500GB drive), So I boot from the Windows Vista CD, but there is no system recovery like in XP. It won't install on top of the system. Instead it tries to automatically fix he problems but it cannot find the problems.
Next I decided, lets try to re-install TCP/IP. This usually solves lots of network problem on XP, but there is no winlogon in the registry (or I did not find it in the regular place), so just in case before I try something else and end up braking it completely, what do you guys recommend?
I haven't really spent much time searching, since I usually don't search to fix problems (I like to come up with the ideas myself), but this time I have no clue what to look for.

An a short separate note, I have a busines laptop that I don't remember the admin password, and it won't login to the domain because the account was deleted in a clean up of the AD. Even recreating the account gives authentication error. But this is low priority, since I have no problem installing Vista again on it

Not sure for the W7 probs, but for the laptop, can you do 'connectcomputer' with the new AD Administrator details?

Or can you log on locally, and clean up the stored profiles?

the only user that I can log in in the laptop is not an administrator so I cannot clean the profiles, unless I boot from a miniPE CD.
About the connectcomputer, what do you mean?? Where I can do that??

Don't worry about the connectcomputer stuff, realised it's really only used for small business server stuff... some fancy wizard that generates systems id's or something... Not what you need in your situation.

Check for some 'admin' password resets, there were a few going around for XP, Vista should have something similar.

Sorry I can't help with your first (major) problem of this thread. The only thing I can think of is to do a safe boot, then step through the start-up code. you should be able to bypass the networking stuff. Then once in, uninstall or re-install your m/b drivers/chipset/lan stuff... else you should still be able to use the minePE cd and back everything up to USB Disk.

good luck.

the latest version of MiniPE cannot change the admin password in vista.
As I was checking online, Vista has a much stronger SAM, which is great, but get me stuck.
It doesn't seem that I will be able to get away from re-installing Vista unfortunately

Sorry to hear Dehc, maybe the trial version of W7 RTM might be a worthwhile installation ;)

This is a laptop for work. I actually use 7 at work. We have it in 2 computers, one is the web design, and the other my work laptop and both work great (and both 64-bit).
I am so busy thought that I doubt I will get to install Vista on that laptop until next year....:p