Windows 7 Networking Problem

[MeMyselfAndEyez]

I have a new Windows 7 box here that isn't automatically connecting to the
Internet.

It connects to the LAN fine.. Picks up an IP, and also DNS/Gateway settings
with DHCP.

The LAN's DNS is working fine - all other machines connecting to the LAN (a
Mac, serveral XP machines and two Linux boxes) are using DNS okay. They're
all talking to each other okay too. There is no LAN problem.

Then there's this Windows 7 box :-(

It can see other machines on the LAN okay, by IP and name.

It'll work on the Internet if I first disable/enable the NIC.

But will it heck just work of it's own accord at boot!

I just get "no internet access" if I hover over the icon in the tray, and
"the dns server isn't responding" if I go through the useless "troubleshoot
problems" process. (DNS is fine).

Anyone have an ideas?

Thanks in advance



Oh, and why have Microsoft removed "telnet" from Windows 7? (Was it missing
in Vista - not sure, I missed that "upgrade"!) Gone are the days of "telnet
ip port" as the fastest/dirtiest way of checking a connection. First I've
got to install the d*mned thing! Was it really that important to save 80k of
disk space?!

 

[MeMyselfAndEyez]

It'll work on the Internet if I first disable/enable the NIC.

That's a lie. I can't get it to consistently work doing this :-\

I *know* everything network-wise is solid - it is for every other machine
around me.

And this is a clean Windows 7 PC!! :-D

 

[Char Jackson]

I have a new Windows 7 box here that isn't automatically connecting to the
Internet.

It connects to the LAN fine.. Picks up an IP, and also DNS/Gateway settings
with DHCP.

Can you share with us what those settings are? For comparison, it
would also be helpful to see the same kinds of settings from a working
system.

 

[MeMyselfAndEyez]

Can you share with us what those settings are? For comparison, it
would also be helpful to see the same kinds of settings from a working
system.

Working system:
IP: 10.208.120.11/24
GW: 10.208.120.1
DNS: 10.208.120.10

Broken Windows 7 system:
IP: 10.208.120.24/24
GW: 10.208.120.1
DNS: 10.208.120.10

 

[Seth]

I have a new Windows 7 box here that isn't automatically connecting to the
Internet.

It connects to the LAN fine.. Picks up an IP, and also DNS/Gateway
settings with DHCP.

The LAN's DNS is working fine - all other machines connecting to the LAN
(a Mac, serveral XP machines and two Linux boxes) are using DNS okay.
They're all talking to each other okay too. There is no LAN problem.

Then there's this Windows 7 box :-(

It can see other machines on the LAN okay, by IP and name.

It'll work on the Internet if I first disable/enable the NIC.

But will it heck just work of it's own accord at boot!

I just get "no internet access" if I hover over the icon in the tray, and
"the dns server isn't responding" if I go through the useless
"troubleshoot problems" process. (DNS is fine).

Anyone have an ideas?

What happens when you do an NSLOOKUP of a local resource as well as an
Internet resource? Even though it may seem like it is seeing other machines
by name/IP, it may not be. By default Windows configures itself as an "H"
node and therefore local operations will occur via broadcast first.

After the NSLOOKUP tests, what happens if you ping or TRACERT to 4.2.2.2

Is 10.208.120.10 a real DNS server or the service built into a
router/gateway/bridge device? Does an NSLOOKUP www.msn.com 4.2.2.2 give you
a result or fail?

Thanks in advance



Oh, and why have Microsoft removed "telnet" from Windows 7? (Was it
missing in Vista - not sure, I missed that "upgrade"!) Gone are the days
of "telnet ip port" as the fastest/dirtiest way of checking a connection.
First I've got to install the d*mned thing! Was it really that important
to save 80k of disk space?!

It hasn't been removed, it's just not installed by default. Go into Control
Panel --> Programs and Features --> Turn Windows Features on and Off to add
it.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

That's a lie. I can't get it to consistently work doing this :-\

I *know* everything network-wise is solid - it is for every other machine
around me.

And this is a clean Windows 7 PC!! :-D

Sounds like the NIC is whacked. Do you have a spare Ethernet card to
install on it? If the spare works, then I'd say exchange the PC for
another one, or if you built it yourself, exchange the motherboard.

Yousuf Khan

 

[MeMyselfAndEyez]

What happens when you do an NSLOOKUP of a local resource as well as an
Internet resource? Even though it may seem like it is seeing other
machines by name/IP, it may not be. By default Windows configures itself
as an "H" node and therefore local operations will occur via broadcast
first.

After the NSLOOKUP tests, what happens if you ping or TRACERT to 4.2.2.2

nslookup resolves internal names; it doesn't resolve internet ones.

Is 10.208.120.10 a real DNS server or the service built into a
router/gateway/bridge device? Does an NSLOOKUP www.msn.com 4.2.2.2 give
you a result or fail?

It fails (because 4.2.2.2 is unreachable.)

While Windows 7 is in this state of "no internet access" I can't do much at
all :-(

..10 is a Windows domain controller that all our machines look to first for
DNS.

I've been playing with it trying to find a way of making the connection work
100%, but I don't seem to be able to. The only thing I've noticed is,
eventually, say after 10-15 minutes of boot, it'll come online. This is
after me trying various pings etc. Windows seems to eventually decide that
it's going to work.

It hasn't been removed, it's just not installed by default. Go into
Control Panel --> Programs and Features --> Turn Windows Features on and
Off to add it.

Yep - it's just a pain doing that Telnet is perfect for quickly testing
connections to websites, pop3/smtp servers etc. I don't see any reason for
MS to decide to remove it. Having to put it back first turns a 5 second task
into a 5 minute one :-( Oh well!

 

[Seth]

nslookup resolves internal names; it doesn't resolve internet ones.

Well, that points to an issue with the DNS server... When the client does a
DNS lookup, if the DNS server is internal, then it doesn't need Internet
access to resolve a name. It's asking your internal .10 server and the .10
server is failing to provide an answer in a reasonable amount of time.
Possible the DNS server has a sporadic issue? Heck, I can configure a client
PC to have no gateway at all thus purposely denying it Internet access but
NSLOOKUP, because it is asking a DNS server that is reachable will still
resolve.

It fails (because 4.2.2.2 is unreachable.)

Well that could be the client or a gateway issue. If other clients are
still able to ping the external resource by IP while this one can't, that's
the client. Unfortunately it is contradictory to your results above with
NSLOOKUP.

While Windows 7 is in this state of "no internet access" I can't do much
at all :-(

.10 is a Windows domain controller that all our machines look to first for
DNS.

OK, and in the case of NSLOOKUP, the machines will only look to the primary
DNS server unless you specifically designate a different one on the command
line.

I've been playing with it trying to find a way of making the connection
work 100%, but I don't seem to be able to. The only thing I've noticed is,
eventually, say after 10-15 minutes of boot, it'll come online. This is
after me trying various pings etc. Windows seems to eventually decide that
it's going to work.

Again, this could be the client, or something funky with the DNS server.

Yep - it's just a pain doing that Telnet is perfect for quickly
testing connections to websites, pop3/smtp servers etc. I don't see any
reason for MS to decide to remove it. Having to put it back first turns a
5 second task into a 5 minute one :-( Oh well!

Start using Powershell. Things like this can be done with a simple
commandline.

For the majority of "users" who use the OS, they don't use telnet. If they
don't use it, why install it be default? Having it installed adds the
possibility that malware can use the machine as a bot for nefarious
purposes. In my environment, we actually remove it from XP clients.

 

[MeMyselfAndEyez]

Well, that points to an issue with the DNS server... When the client does
a DNS lookup, if the DNS server is internal, then it doesn't need Internet
access to resolve a name. It's asking your internal .10 server and the .10
server is failing to provide an answer in a reasonable amount of time.
Possible the DNS server has a sporadic issue? Heck, I can configure a
client PC to have no gateway at all thus purposely denying it Internet
access but NSLOOKUP, because it is asking a DNS server that is reachable
will still resolve.

Yep, I understand all that - I'm just trying to work out WHY it's not
working

Similarly, without a DNS server but with only a gateway address, I should be
able to ping out to an Internet IP.

In this case I have an IP, a correct DNS and gateway address but Win7 says
it has bad connectivity.

After some further investigation - basically connecting up another Windows 7
machine to the LAN and having the same problem - I decided to try both
machines off the LAN with a bog-standard D-Link ADSL Router.

Both Win 7 machines picked up an IP (as they did before) and neither
complained about a lack of internet connectivity or DNS being broken. They
worked straight away after a reboot.

So if this is a problem with the LAN, which things seem to point to, why is
it only with Windows 7 clients? :-(

EVERY other machine works fine. According to ipconfig, Windows 7 picks up
the correct networking settings but for some reason these don't bring it to
life on the LAN :-(

 

[Seth]

Yep, I understand all that - I'm just trying to work out WHY it's not
working

Similarly, without a DNS server but with only a gateway address, I should
be able to ping out to an Internet IP.

In this case I have an IP, a correct DNS and gateway address but Win7 says
it has bad connectivity.

After some further investigation - basically connecting up another Windows
7 machine to the LAN and having the same problem - I decided to try both
machines off the LAN with a bog-standard D-Link ADSL Router.

Both Win 7 machines picked up an IP (as they did before) and neither
complained about a lack of internet connectivity or DNS being broken. They
worked straight away after a reboot.

So if this is a problem with the LAN, which things seem to point to, why
is it only with Windows 7 clients? :-(

EVERY other machine works fine. According to ipconfig, Windows 7 picks up
the correct networking settings but for some reason these don't bring it
to life on the LAN :-(

Yeah, I'm definitely blaming your local DNS server for this one. Windows 7
(Vista too) to determine if a machine has Internet connectivity it tries to
make a connection to an MS host out on the Internet. If that connection
fails, it shuts down certain network resources (which is why you can't PING
even by IP through the gateway). If your DNS fails, then it can't get the
address of the "check host", therefore attempts to reach the "check host"
fail, thus there must not be an Internet connection.

See, this "problem" doesn't manifest itself on say XP cause XP doesn't check
for connectivity in the background and keeps all services running. A way to
see that you are in this state is via ping when the Internet connection is
down. Ping an unreachable address (like 4.2.2.2) on XP will say "request
timed out". On the Win7/Vista client you will get "Reply from <insert your
IP here>: Destination host unreachable".

Did you mention before any specifics about your DNS server at .10? First
thing I would experiment with, in the network properties of the DNS host,
turn off IPv6 support if it's there and see if that changes anything.

Troubleshooting your DNS issue is where you need to turn to resolve this.

 

[ActionMan]

Yeah, I'm definitely blaming your local DNS server for this one. Windows 7
(Vista too) to determine if a machine has Internet connectivity it tries to
make a connection to an MS host out on the Internet. If that connection
fails, it shuts down certain network resources (which is why you can't PING
even by IP through the gateway). If your DNS fails, then it can't get the
address of the "check host", therefore attempts to reach the "check host"
fail, thus there must not be an Internet connection.

See, this "problem" doesn't manifest itself on say XP cause XP doesn't check
for connectivity in the background and keeps all services running. A way to
see that you are in this state is via ping when the Internet connection is
down. Ping an unreachable address (like 4.2.2.2) on XP will say "request
timed out". On the Win7/Vista client you will get "Reply from <insert your
IP here>: Destination host unreachable".

Did you mention before any specifics about your DNS server at .10? First
thing I would experiment with, in the network properties of the DNS host,
turn off IPv6 support if it's there and see if that changes anything.

Troubleshooting your DNS issue is where you need to turn to resolve this.

Did you just use 4.2.2.2 as an example of an IP that's unreachable?
It's only one of the most popular DNS servers. I should hope it's
reachable.

 

[Seth]

Did you just use 4.2.2.2 as an example of an IP that's unreachable?
It's only one of the most popular DNS servers. I should hope it's
reachable.

I always use 4.2.2.2 as a test. I titled it as "unreachable" above as that
is the problem the OP is having. External resources being unreachable and
showing the difference between what Vista/Win7 returns when it thinks it's
Internet connection is down vs. XP trying.

Yes, 4.2.2.2 is the most reliable test address out there.

 

[drewfullen]

Telnet for Windows

It is still possible to get Telnet for Windows 7 or Windows Vista. This article explians how.

http://links.maas360.com/telnetForWindowsVista

 

[Justin]

Yeah, I'm definitely blaming your local DNS server for this one. Windows
7 (Vista too) to determine if a machine has Internet connectivity it
tries to make a connection to an MS host out on the Internet. If that
connection fails, it shuts down certain network resources (which is why
you can't PING even by IP through the gateway). If your DNS fails, then
it can't get the address of the "check host", therefore attempts to
reach the "check host" fail, thus there must not be an Internet connection.

So Microsoft hardcoded some of their own magical servers into the
connectivity check?

 

[Big 666]

It can see other machines on the LAN okay, by IP and name.

It'll work on the Internet if I first disable/enable the NIC.

But will it heck just work of it's own accord at boot!

Maybe, there is something wrong with the NIC -- defective -- it does
happen you know. Maybe the cable is going bad. Have you tried a new NIC
or cable to see if the problem follows?