Windows Server 2008 R2 – NetGear WN111 Wireless-N300 USB adapter – Crazy Driver Error – Code 19

Few months back in a heavy lightning my motherboard(MSI K9A2-Platinum v2) got fried a bit. My onboard network card and few USB ports of the mother board got affected because of it. Remaining everything working smoothly. So I do not have any other option other than start using a Wireless-N300 USB adaptor. I opted for NetGear WN111 Wireless-N300 USB adapter, which I got through an discount offer. So far everything was working fine.

I couldn’t opt for buying a new motherboard for now, because already I spend lots of bucks on my laptop(which got stolen recently) and my dream pc(Phenom-Hexacore) and my pocket is empty for now. So I decided to adjust with what I have for a while.

I decided to install dual boot to “Windows Server 2008 – R2 with SP1″, for trying out Visual Studio 2010 – ALM  & Lab Environment. Installation went successfully and I installed the drivers for my “NetGear WN111 Wireless-N300 USB adapter“. After installation of driver strange error message started to appear. At first I couldn’t understand why the device is not working on “Windows Server 2008 – R2 with SP1” and at the same time it’s working perfectly on “Windows 7 with SP1“.

I went to device manager and look for my NetGear WN111 Wireless-N300 USB adapter, I notied an yellow ! against the device. That means there is some error with device . When I look at the properties it says:

Windows cannot start this hardware device because its configuration information (in the registry) is incomplete or damaged. (Code 19)

I spend on uninstalling and installing device again and again.

Atlast I found the solution! It was something very simple that I really should’ve thought of. The Windows Server 2008 doesn’t have the Wireless LAN Service running by default! Since I have not used Windows Server 2008 for some time, I forgot to check whether “Wireless LAN Service” is running or not. Anyway my I got the solution.
Here’s what we must do:

Start -> Administrative Tools -> Server Manager -> Features -> Add Features -> Wireless LAN Service

It works perfectly now! 🙂 Some times solution is simple, but it takes long time to realize the solution.. 🙂