Control Panel Crashing While Loading WLAN Utility

I'm surprised you've received no replies.  I had the same problem on my new XPS 8000 running Windows 7.  I followed your advice, and now, no more control panel crashes.  Dell should get on this.  Until now, the only way I could run control panel was to open, let it hang, shut it down, then restart.  After a while, that gets old.

Thank you!

Had the same problem with my brandnew Studio 17 with Win7 64bits. Your solution worked fine.

I've uninstalled the Dell Wireless Utility.

Thanks for your help.

Yes same here on Inspiron 15 Core i5 Windows 7 x64 Home Premium.

I renamed the BCMWLCPL.CPL file to a .BAK and Control Panel no longer crashes.

Thank you.

Thank you so much. I had the same problem with my Dell Inspiron 1545, and it started from day 1. The fix worked beautifully!

I also cannot believe that this has not been fixed yet (nor documented).

The date is April 2010.

I have just bought 2 laptops in the last month.

Inspiron 15 (core2duo)

New Inspiron 15 (1545 i3)

Windows 7 64 bit

The system would always hang with Control panel opening until I applied this fix.

DELL = Please fix this for others that are not as tech savvy.

My clients that I bought this for complained that they were not working properly!!!

The fix is documented here.  Just fix your wireless utility in win 7.

Thanks

Utterly laughable and standard Dell operating procedure...I just took delivery of two new Latitude E6510's w/ Windows 7 64-bit...both have this issue. It's been a year since this simple fix was reported, and Dell still ships systems with this bug. I generally delete all the Dell software now...

I just took delivery of a Inspiron Mini (Jan 2011), and obviously this is STILL an issue. Is this is the best DELL can do, then this is the last DELL I purchase.

The fix above did not work for me (no such filename in system32 folder).

I wanted to take the timke to say Thank you!!!

I purchased an alienware M11X and instantly ran into this issue.

I looked for nearly a month before I finally stumbled on your post.

And it WORKED!!

Not only does my Control panel not freeze, but windows seams to load faster and the computer is generaly more responsive and I still retain the wireless connection capability!!

Quick and easy, I guess Dell is to busy trying to sell computers than making their existing drivers bug free. It is a shame, but I Love this little M11X

Since I bought it on Black Friday 2010 - 3 of my friends have either purchased a M11X or M15X.

I will be sure to pass this information along to them.

Thank you and Best Regards!

SGT Frank Watkins

ARNG

FT Hood Texas

Again thank you VERY Much!

I simply updated the driver for my WLAN card from the suggested drivers for my system (m1330) and it seems to have resolved the issue for me.  Since there is no driver listed for 64 bit Windows 7, I used the driver for 64 bit Vista.  I am not sure if my original driver had become corrupt or not.  Also this isssue was occuring when I was running Vista as well.  When I updated to 7 I had hoped it would correct it, but it did not.  So, I decided to try the driver update and that appears to have fixed it.  Here is the link to the driver......

<ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell>

Hello All,

I used to work with a company outsourced in the Tampa area that actually provides support for Workstations, desktops, and portables. The problem with using the community forum to rant is that your voice isn't as well heard as if you were to call Tech Support. If you call technical support and make tickets, the support teams will notice a trend and the engineers at Dell usually get on those issues as quickly as possible.

Those days are long gone from me at the moment... but I just wanted you to be aware that the community posts aren't all seen by Dell staff. Your questions might get better answered or acknowledged by calling technical support to see if theres any sort of broadcasted communication to the support teams regarding a fix or resolution for the issue. Its usually a news feed thats sent out to Technical support on the latest trends of issues depending on what software or hardware was released and... when... trends do come and go though.

Its pretty sad to hear that you're disappointed enough with the Dell software to complete rule out Dell as a manufacturer all together. HPs are nice, so are their mail-in support teams that won't work with you to fix the issue but give you an address so you can pay the shipping to have your system mailed to Texas or CA or wherever it goes... have fun with that. Remember to back up your data because you wont get it back when the system is shipped back.

As for the best solution... and my personal favorite. As much as I like using a Dell system... I hate their software. Just remove the troublesome software. I only use the Windows wireless manager. I don't even like the Intel ProSet wifi manager. Its junk... Windows is more versatile to connect to different networks with less than half of the clicks to authenticate to secured networks. Sorry but I'm lazy on that and thats how I'm gonna roll with that issue.

Always regularly check for system updates, thats what the major benefit of the Dell Quickset is so you can get updates on OEM BIOS and Drivers from Dell.

thanks soo much. had this problem for over 6 months and was going crazy. Life saver!

Nawai,

Glad to hear that I could help out someone, thanks for the feedback.

Cheers!

I downloaded and installed the newest version of the driver for the DW WLAN Card Utility from:

http://support.us.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=gen&releaseid=R260223&formatcnt=0&libid=0&typeid=-1&dateid=-1&formatid=-1&source=-1&fileid=381725

This did NOT solve the problem with the freezing control panel.

.

On 64 bit Windows Vista Home Premium, the Control Panel will crash during the first time it's opened, Windows Explorer will not respond and is restarted, after that, the Control Panel will load fine until the computer is rebooted. This behaviour is also observed on 64 bit Windows 7 Ultimate. I've noticed that during the crash, one icon would not show up, which is the Dell Wireless WLAN Card Utility. I suspected Control Panel has trouble loading this item. The file for this item is BCMWLCPL.CPL If you remove BCMWLCPL.CPL from the C:/Windows/System32 folder, the control panel will not crash. This file is the Dell Wireless WLAN Card Utility. If you experience a similar issue, I suggest you move the file BCMWLCPL.CPL to another location and edit the Dell Wireless WLAN Card Utility shortcut provided in your Start Menu to point to the new location. Dell, please see why Control Panel crashes when loading this file and fix it via an update or patch.

This issue might be related to security policies restricting Trusted Digitally Signed applications in the system32 folder.

Might try moving it to the Dell folder in Program Files and then update the Shortcut.