Wireless connection stopped working

[M Skabialka]

A friend with a vista PC was having problems connecting wirelessly to a
router. It had been working OK for months then she decided to download the
MS Office 2007 trial. Since then her wireless connection stopped working
(though I have no idea why this happened at this time). Their other
computer was also having a really slow ethernet connection so I had them buy
a new cisco wireles router with his new PC. I told the Vista machine to
connect to the new SSID but I had set up WPA on the router and vista didn't
have that option. So then I changed it to WEP on the router but vista said
it couldn't connect. A help menu had me run some netsh commands about adhoc
and infrastructure but it still didn't work so I rebooted. Now the vista PC
doesn't even see any wireless networks available, but a laptop I tried as a
test still sees three SSIDs including the new one.

What are my troubleshooting steps in vista to find out what is wrong with
her wireless connection and how to fix it?
And how can I find out what is still making the network still slow - the
other machine is brand new with WinXP?

 

[Lem]

A friend with a vista PC was having problems connecting wirelessly to a
router. It had been working OK for months then she decided to download the
MS Office 2007 trial. Since then her wireless connection stopped working
(though I have no idea why this happened at this time). Their other
computer was also having a really slow ethernet connection so I had them buy
a new cisco wireles router with his new PC. I told the Vista machine to
connect to the new SSID but I had set up WPA on the router and vista didn't
have that option. So then I changed it to WEP on the router but vista said
it couldn't connect. A help menu had me run some netsh commands about adhoc
and infrastructure but it still didn't work so I rebooted. Now the vista PC
doesn't even see any wireless networks available, but a laptop I tried as a
test still sees three SSIDs including the new one.

What are my troubleshooting steps in vista to find out what is wrong with
her wireless connection and how to fix it?
And how can I find out what is still making the network still slow - the
other machine is brand new with WinXP?

This setup probably is too far gone to fix using newsgroup advice. In
particular, who knows what you managed to do with netsh. But here goes
anyway.

This is simply wrong:

I had set up WPA on the router and vista didn't have that option.

What led you to that conclusion? Have you installed Vista sp1?

Start by ensuring that the laptop's wifi adapter is actually turned on
and functioning. Check the documentation for a physical switch or
Fn+Fkey combination. Check Device Manager.

If you get things back to where you can detect the presence of wireless
networks, then configure the router to use *no* security at all (no
encryption, no IP filters, no MAC filters, etc.) and try to connect. If
you can connect when there is no security present, then add back
WPA2-Personal encryption and try connecting again.

--
Lem -- MS-MVP

To the moon and back with 2K words of RAM and 36K words of ROM.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer
http://history.nasa.gov/afj/compessay.htm

 

[smlunatick]

A friend with a vista PC was having problems connecting wirelessly to a
router.  It had been working OK for months then she decided to downloadthe
MS Office 2007 trial.  Since then her wireless connection stopped working
(though I have no idea why this happened at this time).  Their other
computer was also having a really slow ethernet connection so I had them buy
a new cisco wireles router with his new PC.  I told the Vista machine to
connect to the new SSID but I had set up WPA on the router and vista didn't
have that option.  So then I changed it to WEP on the router but vista said
it couldn't connect.  A help menu had me run some netsh commands about adhoc
and infrastructure but it still didn't work so I rebooted.  Now the vista PC
doesn't even see any wireless networks available, but a laptop I tried asa
test still sees three SSIDs including the new one.

What are my troubleshooting steps in vista to find out what is wrong with
her wireless connection and how to fix it?
And how can I find out what is still making the network still slow - the
other machine is brand new with WinXP?

Seen this before, but under XP.

On the Vista PC, look at all anti-virus / firewall settings. These
can "block" access to the wireless network SSID.

On the Windows XP, turn of the "QoS Scheduler." Most "home" router do
not have this "feature" implemented correctly.

 

[M Skabialka]

When I still could see the wireless networks and couldn't connect I tried an
option to manually connect. Under the security setting options were: none,
WEP and 802.11x, there wasn't an option for WPA.
I tried setting the router to have no security but was still unable to see
any networks.
Device manager shows no problems - it is not disabled.
I am not sure about Vista SP1 so have downloaded it for install next time I
go to her house.
If that netsh command was a problem - is there a way to reverse the effects
and start setting up the wireless card from scratch? I am not near the
machine and the command was run from the start menu so I don't even know if
I could find it again to see what I did. It was suggested in a
troubleshooting menu on the machine.
The vista machine is 21 months old and wireless was working until recently.
The router is new.
What are the steps to remove and reinstall the wireless capabilities in
Vista (which I am not very familiar with)?

 

[M Skabialka]

What bothers me is that not seeing the wireless networks is something I have
caused somehow - so I have made a bad situation (cannot connect) worse
(cannot see networks to connect to). Since I broke it, now I have to fix
it..!

A friend with a vista PC was having problems connecting wirelessly to a
router. It had been working OK for months then she decided to download the
MS Office 2007 trial. Since then her wireless connection stopped working
(though I have no idea why this happened at this time). Their other
computer was also having a really slow ethernet connection so I had them
buy
a new cisco wireles router with his new PC. I told the Vista machine to
connect to the new SSID but I had set up WPA on the router and vista
didn't
have that option. So then I changed it to WEP on the router but vista said
it couldn't connect. A help menu had me run some netsh commands about
adhoc
and infrastructure but it still didn't work so I rebooted. Now the vista
PC
doesn't even see any wireless networks available, but a laptop I tried as
a
test still sees three SSIDs including the new one.

What are my troubleshooting steps in vista to find out what is wrong with
her wireless connection and how to fix it?
And how can I find out what is still making the network still slow - the
other machine is brand new with WinXP?

Seen this before, but under XP.

On the Vista PC, look at all anti-virus / firewall settings. These
can "block" access to the wireless network SSID.

On the Windows XP, turn of the "QoS Scheduler." Most "home" router do
not have this "feature" implemented correctly.

 

[M Skabialka]

I think this is the help menu I found:

1. Open the Command Prompt window by clicking the Start button ,
clicking All Programs, clicking Accessories, and then clicking Command
Prompt.

2. Type netsh wlan add filter networktype=network type.

Where network type is either adhoc or infrastructure.


I was unsure of the network type (still am) so tried both adhoc and
infrastructure but neither worked. Did this mess things up?

 

[Lem]

When I still could see the wireless networks and couldn't connect I tried an
option to manually connect. Under the security setting options were: none,
WEP and 802.11x, there wasn't an option for WPA.
I tried setting the router to have no security but was still unable to see
any networks.
Device manager shows no problems - it is not disabled.
I am not sure about Vista SP1 so have downloaded it for install next time I
go to her house.
If that netsh command was a problem - is there a way to reverse the effects
and start setting up the wireless card from scratch? I am not near the
machine and the command was run from the start menu so I don't even know if
I could find it again to see what I did. It was suggested in a
troubleshooting menu on the machine.
The vista machine is 21 months old and wireless was working until recently.
The router is new.
What are the steps to remove and reinstall the wireless capabilities in
Vista (which I am not very familiar with)?

Unfortunately, I'm not very familiar with Vista either.

It's not that there's anything "bad" about netsh, it's just that there's
potential for reconfiguring things that normally one ought not to be
configuring. You should be able to deal with normal wireless networking
issues using the GUI.

I assume that because you can see the router's SSID from a Win XP box
that you didn't configure the router to not broadcast SSID. If for some
reason my assumption is wrong, change the router to permit SSID broadcast.

Device Manager showing "enabled" is only part of the issue. You have to
ensure that the wifi radio is actually turned on. This will be
accomplished either with an actual physical switch or (more likely) Fn+Fkey.

--
Lem -- MS-MVP

To the moon and back with 2K words of RAM and 36K words of ROM.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer
http://history.nasa.gov/afj/compessay.htm

 

[Lem]

I think this is the help menu I found:

1. Open the Command Prompt window by clicking the Start button ,
clicking All Programs, clicking Accessories, and then clicking Command
Prompt.

2. Type netsh wlan add filter networktype=network type.

Where network type is either adhoc or infrastructure.


I was unsure of the network type (still am) so tried both adhoc and
infrastructure but neither worked. Did this mess things up?

Could have. You shouldn't need to add filters. An "ad hoc" network is a
computer-to-computer network; this won't work with your router. I don't
know what the command you typed here will do because you omitted the
actual filter itself (i.e., permission={allow|block| denyall}).

To see how things are configured:
In an account with administrative privileges, open a Command Prompt
window. Then type "netsh show all" [without quotes, press Enter]
Copy/paste the results into your next post.

Or you could delete the profile and start over (but I think you have to
use netsh for this task).

netsh show profiles [to make sure you get the correct ProfileName]

netsh delete profile name=ProfileName

--
Lem -- MS-MVP

To the moon and back with 2K words of RAM and 36K words of ROM.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer
http://history.nasa.gov/afj/compessay.htm

 

[M Skabialka]

I won't be over there for a couple of weeks so will continue this thread
then - or maybe a new thread if this is buried too deep. Thanks for the
suggestions so far...

I think this is the help menu I found:

1. Open the Command Prompt window by clicking the Start button ,
clicking All Programs, clicking Accessories, and then clicking Command
Prompt.

2. Type netsh wlan add filter networktype=network type.

Where network type is either adhoc or infrastructure.


I was unsure of the network type (still am) so tried both adhoc and
infrastructure but neither worked. Did this mess things up?

Could have. You shouldn't need to add filters. An "ad hoc" network is a
computer-to-computer network; this won't work with your router. I don't
know what the command you typed here will do because you omitted the
actual filter itself (i.e., permission={allow|block| denyall}).

To see how things are configured:
In an account with administrative privileges, open a Command Prompt
window. Then type "netsh show all" [without quotes, press Enter]
Copy/paste the results into your next post.

Or you could delete the profile and start over (but I think you have to
use netsh for this task).

netsh show profiles [to make sure you get the correct ProfileName]

netsh delete profile name=ProfileName

--
Lem -- MS-MVP

To the moon and back with 2K words of RAM and 36K words of ROM.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer
http://history.nasa.gov/afj/compessay.htm

 

[Timothy Davis [MSFT]]

I found a very similar issue with my wife's corporate computer on our home
network.

The issue turned out to be the Intel wireless application installed which
overrides the Windows wireless applet. After installing a driver update
from Intel - this issue was resolved.

Had to use Locksmith to get admin access, but that is another story.

I won't be over there for a couple of weeks so will continue this thread
then - or maybe a new thread if this is buried too deep. Thanks for the
suggestions so far...

I think this is the help menu I found:

1. Open the Command Prompt window by clicking the Start button ,
clicking All Programs, clicking Accessories, and then clicking Command
Prompt.

2. Type netsh wlan add filter networktype=network type.

Where network type is either adhoc or infrastructure.


I was unsure of the network type (still am) so tried both adhoc
and infrastructure but neither worked. Did this mess things up?

Could have. You shouldn't need to add filters. An "ad hoc" network is a
computer-to-computer network; this won't work with your router. I don't
know what the command you typed here will do because you omitted the
actual filter itself (i.e., permission={allow|block| denyall}).

To see how things are configured:
In an account with administrative privileges, open a Command Prompt
window. Then type "netsh show all" [without quotes, press Enter]
Copy/paste the results into your next post.

Or you could delete the profile and start over (but I think you have to
use netsh for this task).

netsh show profiles [to make sure you get the correct ProfileName]

netsh delete profile name=ProfileName

--
Lem -- MS-MVP

To the moon and back with 2K words of RAM and 36K words of ROM.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer
http://history.nasa.gov/afj/compessay.htm

 

[M Skabialka]

By saying 'Intel wireless application' do you mean download the latest
drivers for the wireless card or is there some other software running the
wireless access to the internet?

I found a very similar issue with my wife's corporate computer on our home
network.

The issue turned out to be the Intel wireless application installed which
overrides the Windows wireless applet. After installing a driver update
from Intel - this issue was resolved.

Had to use Locksmith to get admin access, but that is another story.

I won't be over there for a couple of weeks so will continue this thread
then - or maybe a new thread if this is buried too deep. Thanks for the
suggestions so far...

M Skabialka wrote:
I think this is the help menu I found:

1. Open the Command Prompt window by clicking the Start button ,
clicking All Programs, clicking Accessories, and then clicking Command
Prompt.

2. Type netsh wlan add filter networktype=network type.

Where network type is either adhoc or infrastructure.


I was unsure of the network type (still am) so tried both adhoc
and infrastructure but neither worked. Did this mess things up?


Could have. You shouldn't need to add filters. An "ad hoc" network is a
computer-to-computer network; this won't work with your router. I don't
know what the command you typed here will do because you omitted the
actual filter itself (i.e., permission={allow|block| denyall}).

To see how things are configured:
In an account with administrative privileges, open a Command Prompt
window. Then type "netsh show all" [without quotes, press Enter]
Copy/paste the results into your next post.

Or you could delete the profile and start over (but I think you have to
use netsh for this task).

netsh show profiles [to make sure you get the correct ProfileName]

netsh delete profile name=ProfileName

--
Lem -- MS-MVP

To the moon and back with 2K words of RAM and 36K words of ROM.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer
http://history.nasa.gov/afj/compessay.htm

 

[Timothy Davis [MSFT]]

Well, both really.

Many devices can be installed with just the driver, or with a bundled
application. With just the driver, Windows will use the built in Wireless
control application to find and configure wireless networks.

But there are 3rd party applications that disable the Microsoft wireless
applet, and use their own.

Example:

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/fil...XP+Professional&lang=eng&strOSs=44&submit=Go!

On this link, you have the drivers - and then you have the software
connection applications. Even if you have the latest and greatest drivers,
if you are using an old version of the software configuration, you may not
be able to see or connect to access points.

What I would do in your situation is to uninstall any 3rd party wireless
managers, uninstall the device driver (and click the 'remove driver files'
checkbox), and then go to the manufucturers website and find the latest
drivers/utilities for the device and install them.

Also, as Lem suggested, you might want to try configuring the wireless
network without security, and seeing if you can connect.

As a fellow geek, I feel your pain in this situation. FSM knows how many
times I have made the situation worse after trying to fix a problem.

This video always makes me feel better, though:

http://www.thewebsiteisdown.com/

By saying 'Intel wireless application' do you mean download the latest
drivers for the wireless card or is there some other software running the
wireless access to the internet?

I found a very similar issue with my wife's corporate computer on our home
network.

The issue turned out to be the Intel wireless application installed which
overrides the Windows wireless applet. After installing a driver update
from Intel - this issue was resolved.

Had to use Locksmith to get admin access, but that is another story.

I won't be over there for a couple of weeks so will continue this thread
then - or maybe a new thread if this is buried too deep. Thanks for the
suggestions so far...

M Skabialka wrote:
I think this is the help menu I found:

1. Open the Command Prompt window by clicking the Start button ,
clicking All Programs, clicking Accessories, and then clicking Command
Prompt.

2. Type netsh wlan add filter networktype=network type.

Where network type is either adhoc or infrastructure.


I was unsure of the network type (still am) so tried both adhoc
and infrastructure but neither worked. Did this mess things up?


Could have. You shouldn't need to add filters. An "ad hoc" network is a
computer-to-computer network; this won't work with your router. I don't
know what the command you typed here will do because you omitted the
actual filter itself (i.e., permission={allow|block| denyall}).

To see how things are configured:
In an account with administrative privileges, open a Command Prompt
window. Then type "netsh show all" [without quotes, press Enter]
Copy/paste the results into your next post.

Or you could delete the profile and start over (but I think you have to
use netsh for this task).

netsh show profiles [to make sure you get the correct ProfileName]

netsh delete profile name=ProfileName

--
Lem -- MS-MVP

To the moon and back with 2K words of RAM and 36K words of ROM.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer
http://history.nasa.gov/afj/compessay.htm