Duplicate Control Panel entries

My xp machine has two identical 'Network Connection' entries in the Control Panel. They both appear to be looking at the same settings.
I don't remember this being usual, how do I remove one of these?
Thanks, John.

 

http://www.winhelponline.com/blog/how-to-remove-duplicate-icons-from-the-control-panel/

read through above article,

 

Thanks, I have read through above. I don't find any duplicate .cpl files.
One entry points to netshell.dll and the other to ncpa.dll. My limited understanding is that these both permit modification of network properties by different methods.

 

http://www.theeldergeek.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=11014

found this thread, please read through it, there are a couple of different solutions, let me know if it works,

 

Thanks Elizabeth23 for finding that thread. With its help one "Network Connection" entry is ncpa.dll enabling "Configure Network Software" and the other is netshell.dll enabling "Connects to Other Computers, Network and the Internet". The thread Posted 24 June 2010 - 05:12 AM by jmatt in http://www.theeldergeek.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=11014 shows how to edit the registry for this problem. My xp sp3 OS had no "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\don't load" so it was created and "ncpa.cpl REG_SZ No" placed in it. A reboot and duplicate entry is gone and all seems well. If I ever have to configure network software, which is not likely, I assume there is some other way of running ncpa.dll from the user interface.
Many thanks for your help. John.

 

glad to have helped.

make sure to run some scans on your pc to ensure that the issue was not caused by a virus.