Sudden Loss of Network Connectivity

With the popularity of windows vista and windows 7, comes some new headaches for the users.  One such headache is sudden loss of network connectivity.  For no apparent reason, the network connection that was previously working fine suddenly fails.  Whatever the cause may be, here are the steps I do to fix it:

1.  Reset the winsock by doing the following steps:
     a.  Open a command prompt (Click Start, click Run.  Type cmd at the box, then press Enter)
     b.  On the command prompt, type "netsh winsock reset" (without the quotes) then press Enter.
     c.  Restart the computer for the changes to take effect.
2.  If that doesn't work, I usually check the physical appearance of the LAN cables (if the computer is connected via LAN cable [wired]).  If there appears some hint of corrossion, I scrape them off with a small knife or a small screwdriver.
3.  If that still doesn't work, I now run a trojan remover.  One of my most used trojan remover is Simply Super Software's Trojan remover (http://www.simplysup.com), which does a good job of catching some nasty trojans and other viruses.  It also has some pretty good features in the Utilities menu like the resetting of Internet Explorer settings, etc..).
4.  If it fails, I'll try using a different harddisk, formatting it then trying the network connectivity.
5.  If it fails, then it might be a hardware issue.
6.  But if it works, then I know that I have to reformat the computer.