I don't know what on Earth AOL developers do in their AIM 6.x setup but they sure manage to mess things up in Vista. Once AIM is installed, my network detection no longer works and it gives an error that reads: "No network - server execution failed." The problem seems to be some kind of COM error and the fix which has worked for me twice is adding localservice to the Administrator group (Net localgroup Administrators localservice /add).
Today, when attempting to install SQL Server 2005 Express, I kept coming across the following error
The SQL Server System Configuration Checker cannot be executed due to WMI configuration on the machine [computername] Error:2147500034 (0x80004002)
After tons of reboots and WMI resets that didn't work, I found the solution on Chuck Boyer's blog. It was eerily close to the AOL fix: net localgroup Administrators "Network Service" /add.
My SQL install then worked properly right away. I was extremely relieved to find that fix because my experience with faulty SQL Server 2005 installs in the past have not been resolvable AND the reason I was reinstalling SQL and AIM is because I had to format my Vista laptop after a beta Citrix VPN client for Vista completely killed my ability to VPN to any network using any protocol. While I was uninstalling the client, I blue screened and when I came back and tried to establish a VPN connection using Vista's built in client, I was unable to register my computer on the network. It errored out with: "Error 720: No PPP control protocols configured." After a few hours of trying to fix it, I decided to just wipe Vista and start over. It felt kind of good actually. My computer, especially Firefox, runs a lot smoother now that I don't have so many extensions going. Ultimately, though, I was a bit tired and just wanted all of my installs to go well.
Anyway, it took a long time for me to find the solution on Chuck's blog so hopefully this post will help him get some positive PankRanking.
Edit: Already I see a few people have found my site while looking for a solution. Did the above work for you, too?