I'm having an issue similar to what the original poster described. I get the following error, and if I try to run SP after that I see the "Connecting..." issue.
For the last week or so I've seen Vista "crash" notifications for StorageProtect. It appears at odd times, not during a backup, just out of the blue, so I'm not sure what triggers it. Here's the description from the error box:
Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: svchost.exe_swprv
Application Version: 6.0.6001.18000
Application Timestamp: 47918b89
Fault Module Name: swprv.dll
Fault Module Version: 6.0.6001.18000
Fault Module Timestamp: 4791a765
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 00020112
OS Version: 6.0.6001.2.1.0.768.3
Locale ID: 1033
Additional Information 1: ae04
Additional Information 2: e9695e9f4988aadf8f35e81526c9bb4c
Additional Information 3: 584f
Additional Information 4: d68904f874dea23d94470550dcec1126
Usually, rebooting will get SP going again. This is a new problem. SP was working fine for the past several months. After I see this error, if I don't reboot, I see "Connecting..." forever when I start the SP Desktop.
Do I need the DEP fix? Or is this something else?