I've come across this problem quite a bit in these newsgroups. The problem is, I tried to set up a new hardware profile last weekend, and may have changed some improtant settings in gpedit. Now I've lost the icons in the network connections folder, and there is no icon on the task-bar to show I'm online. Everything works, and all the relevant services have started, but I think its a permission problem. When I go to WMI, I have access to local computer denied when I try to look up properties.
Network Communications icons missing 
Linear Mode
