Intel N7260 Switches off after a second following WIndows 10 Update

[ArtDent]

I have an issue following installing a batch of Windows 10 64 updates which included 4 HP updates. One of these has broken my wifi connectivity.

Symptoms are that the WiFI shows as switched off. I can switch it on from the Windows notification panel - it then shows the available networks but with 2 seconds it has switched back off again. I can repeat this at will. The Wifi Button switches Airplane mode on/off but this does not switch on WiFi.

Adapter is Intel N 7260, driver is 18.33.17.1, OS is Windows 10 64 ver1809

Here are the updates installed:

Driver Updates (4)
HP Development Company, L.P. - SoftwareComponent - 5/13/2019 12:00:00 AM - 7.0.15.1
Successfully installed on 27/10/2019
HP Development Company, L.P. - System - 7/19/2019 12:00:00 AM - 7.0.9.1
Successfully installed on 27/10/2019
HP Development Company, L.P. - Extension - 5/13/2019 12:00:00 AM - 7.0.15.1
Successfully installed on 27/10/2019
HP Development Company, L.P. - Keyboard - 5/13/2019 12:00:00 AM -11.0.8.1
Successfully installed on 27/10/2019

I have tried various different driver versions, none of which fix the issue, which leads me to think that the issue is not the wireless driver itself but something else that is switching the adaptor off. I've removed the 'Let Windows switch off power' option to no avail.

I also tried disabling the hotkey and uninstalling Intel ProSet.

I do not know how/if I can uninstall these updates as they are not listed in Programs/Features or how I can install the other updates without these (this was possible in Win 7 but does not seem to be in Win 10 - in fact as soon as I scan for updates it starts installing them 

The only way I have found so-far to get Wifi working again is to do a full system restore from backup which takes 4 hours. Obviously I can turn off Windows Update but that's not really a solution. System has been running reliably for years and had Windows 10 about a year ago without issues until now.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

The only suggestion I can offer would be to see if the hide windows updates utility allows you to prevent the update(s) that are wrecking the wifi adapter connection.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/3073930/how-to-temporarily-prevent-a-driver-update-from-rei...

Use the version for 1607, since it is the latest one.

I don't have your notebook, but I just ran every update I could on my HP 350 G1 notebook today, which also has the Intel 7260 AC wifi adapter, and it works fine.

I did not get any of those updates you listed, except the 7.0.9.1 update, which is for the HP mobile data protection sensor.

You don't have an ethernet cable plugged in do you?

The PC is set by default to automatically disable the wifi adapter if an ethernet cable is plugged in.

To disable that option, you have to go into the BIOS and disable the LAN/WLAN switching setting, and you also have to go to the Windows control panel>system & security>administrative tools> services.

Stop the "HP LAN/WLAN/WWAN Switching UWP Service" and change the startup to manual.

Now both the WIFI and ETHERNET should work at the same time.

[ArtDent · Accepted solution]

That for your response Paul, much appreciated.

I concluded that I could not resolve the issue in the short term so I purchased a WiFi USB Dongle. I plugged this in and Windows duly set up the drivers and when I disabled the internal WiFi adaptor and enabled the new adapter I got exactly the same result.

This got me thinking, like you, about the behaviour when you plug in Ethernet  - it was as if I had plugged in Ethernet when I hadn't - it was only then that I paid attention to an Adapter called NpCap Loopback Adapter.  I tried disabling this and lo and behold WiFi sprung back to life. A little googling revealed that others also had this issue.

The Device Description of this adapter is Microsoft KM-TEST Loopback Adapter. from some initial research, it seems this can be installed by a number of products but my most likely candidate is WireShark - I think the name stands for Network Packet Capture,

So why this update caused this issue (I can see from the Adapter Properties that it was installed in March this year) I don't yet know. I will do some more research in the next few days and post again if I find anything significant, like a solution that allows WireShark to work (I use it very rarely,). It is also possible that something else also uses that adapter.