Windows (Network) error 0x800704B3

[German]Occasionally Windows users (especially under Windows 10) are facing error 0x800704B3. This error may occur during update installation, during network access, etc. An installation is then aborted, for example. So let's see, what's behind this error code.

Notes on the error 0x800704B3

The error may occur under different versions of Windows and during different operations. This Microsoft Answers forum post describes a scenario where the update installation under Windows 7 terminates with error code 0x800704B3.

I have windows 7 professional 32-bit,an i am trying to install updates in my computer, but unfortunately im getting error 0x800704b3, whne i tried to perform a clean boot, i noy able to open the msconfiguration. i am getting an error "0x800704b3 The network path was either typed incorrectly, does not exist, or th network provider is not currently available. Please try retyping the path or contact your network administrator."  and i tried Start > computer > Local drive C: But when i double clicked on the drive C, i got an acces denied error.  the only application that i can use is just internet explorer, and im getting 0x800704b3 on all other. how can i resolve this issue?

This Microsoft Answers- forum post addresses the same error in Windows 8.1 during an update install. A Windows upgrade issue causing this error is mentioned here (the hard disk is no longer accessible).

Here somebody reported issues with network access under Windows 7. Also here the error occurs with Windows 10 for network accesses. And here someone has disabled network access using a 'tip' found within the Internet.

(Source: Dell Forum)

The above screenshot shows the network error when trying to access a Windows component and is described in the Dell Forum.

What is Error 0x800704b3 stands for

To get a sense of where the cause might lie, it is necessary to find out the error text for error code 0x800704b3. The error code stands for:

Error 0x800704b3 = ERROR_NO_NET_OR_BAD_PATH

The specified network path was not accepted by any network service provider.

This is a strong indication that the problem is related to the network service provider.

Step 1: Exclude third-party virus scanners and tools

Does the error occur after updates or installation of tools (VPN, AV)? To exclude an influence of external virus scanners, firewalls, VPN software, these should be uninstalled from the system as a test. If the software manufacturer offers a cleaning tool to remove files left on the system, this need also to be executed. Then restart Windows and check if the error is gone.

f you search for the error name, you will end up here, for example. This shows that faulty software can cause such trouble.

Step 2: Broken Windows and defective user account

It's always a good idea to check, if Windows is damaged. To check this, use my advices given within my blog post Check and repair Windows system files and component store. In Windows 7, only the part describing sfc /checknow may be executed. And you can still run CheckSUR to fix damages.

To make sure that no broken user account is the cause of these problems, you should try to create a new account and test whether the error still occurs there or has been corrected. If the error is gone, delete the broken user account and create it again (this is nothing else as a reset of the user account).

Step 3: Control services

The next approach could be to check: Is a service required for network access is missing. This approach was discussed in this forum post, where network shares could no longer be opened.

In this case, the services were controlled and it turned out that the TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper service was disabled. However, the service could no longer be activated, due to an error message "The system could not find the specified path" appeared. The user found out by comparing the registry values several machines of the key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\lmhosts

that he need to change the start value for the service from 4 to 2. This forces an automatic start of the service. After a restart, the problem was fixed.

Step 4: Check SMB protocols

Let's now come to the user from this German Microsoft Answers forum thread, who used a 'cool trick' found on the Internet (and withdrew network support). This post was the reason for this blog post. The user wrote:

I have a problem [WIN10 Pro, version: 1709, build 16299.248 ] to access the data of PC3 with PC2, then I googled and found a forum tip that I thought was good, because many users wrote that it was successful.

This was to display the PC in the network again in which cmd has to execute the following commands:

sc.exe config lanmanworkstation depend= bowser/mrxsmb10/nsi
sc.exe config mrxsmb20 start= disabled

I did this, restarted and suddenly couldn't access my PC1.

I posted a few hints at Microsoft Answers, but here is my explanation, what went wrong (maybe helpful for others):

• The commands given above disables SMBv2 on that machine – and the first command seems to force Lanmanager to use SMBv1 for networking.
• So Windows 10 V1709 is forced to use SMBv1 for network access. But according to this support article, SMBv1/CIF is no more activated in Windows 10 V1709.

Well done, the user has disabled Windows 10 network access using these instructions. The commands to repair are should bee:

sc.exe config lanmanworkstation depend= bowser/mrxsmb10/mrxsmb20/nsi
sc.exe config mrxsmb10 start= auto

Notes on how to detect and disable/enable SMBv1, SMBv2 and SMBv3 can be found in this Microsoft support document. The registry entries from step 3 are also described there.

Step 5: Homegroup is causing issues

I'll take it in to be on the safe side, because it seems to happen with homegroups, too. This Microsoft Answers forum post describes the problem in a homegroup (without a solution). The same applies to this MS Answers forum thread. In the end, the approaches I outlined in steps 4 and 5 above would probably have contributed to finding a solution. But homegroup support will be abandoned in future versions of Windows 10.

In this blog post, a Windows 7 user describes how he failed to access ReadyNAS shares with the error. Access to the NAS drive via SMB was no longer possible – still smells like the above explanations will help. The user then managed to remove the homegroup on his Windows 7 machine. This solves the problem of accessing the NAS drive – but probably not a universal approach.