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Windows 7 – “Identifying Network” (Resolved)


I was at a friends house last weekend. I found a very interesting problem with Windows 7. They had a laptop they just purchased in Taiwan, and no matter how they tried to connect it to their network, it would always say “Identifying Network”:

Now, in the screen shot it is the wireless network, but this was happening with a direct connection to the router as well.

After some digging and poking at the machine I determined that it was not picking up an IP address from DHCP. It turns out that this is actually an issue in Vista too.

Microsoft has a soloution: KB928233. In short the fix is to set a registry key. There are actually two different registry keys.

One of them allows you to try the current method (But broken with older routers), and if it fails it will try the old way:

DhcpConnEnableBcastFlagToggle

The other key allows you to bypass this entirely and totally switch back to the old XP way:

DhcpConnForceBroadcastFlag

Both of them are under the GUID of the network card in this registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces\{GUID}

Neither of them solved my problem. I tried for quite some time different tricks to get Windows 7 to pickup an IP address from this old router with no success.

The final solution was to give the laptop a static IP address. Not the best, but at least he could get on the net.

The question is, have you ever seen this problem with Windows 7, or Vista? If so, how did you finally get it to work?

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Written by Steve Wiseman. Read more great feeds at is source WEBSITE

3 comments.
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Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com gogo
#1. January 25th, 2010, at 1:21 AM.

Try following the instructions EXACTLY.

TCP/IP stack repair options for use with Windows Vista.

Start, Programs\Accessories and right click on Command Prompt, select ” Run as Administrator” to open a command prompt.

In the command prompt window that opens, type type the following commands:

Reset WINSOCK entries to installation defaults: netsh winsock reset catalog

Reset IPv4 TCP/IP stack to installation defaults. netsh int ipv4 reset reset.log

Reset IPv6 TCP/IP stack to installation defaults. netsh int ipv6 reset reset.log

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Neil
#2. February 10th, 2010, at 3:45 PM.

Well that didn’t work for me gogo, however I found a work around on another site, shutdown my wireless connection using fn/F8 key(Toshiba Laptop)others could be different key, when the connection is lost turn it back on and enable the connection. This stops it from constantly identifying. :) Not a true fix but it will do for now.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Neil
#3. April 16th, 2010, at 10:30 AM.

Finally figured a fix which worked for me.
I restarted the laptop with the wireless connection switch shut off.
After reboot was complete, then I turned the switch back on.
Then open control panel, Network & Sharing Center.
Should be your default network now & private network status.
Across from that click Customize.
At the bottom of the pop-up click ‘Merge or delete Network Locations’.
In the pop-up if there is a Network that is not in use delete it, then close/cancel the remaining open windows.
I have a third party software firewall (Comodo) installed on my laptop which I use and thought I had the windows firewall disable but I guessed wrong.
So I went to start menu, control panel, windows firewall, and found that even though I had it turned off it was still monitoring my system.
To disable the Windows Firewall on a network connection:

1. Click Start and click Control Panel.
2. Click then select Windows Firewall.
3. Click Change Settings.
4. From the window that appears, click the Advanced tab.
5. Remove the check beside the connection that you want to disable the Windows Firewall for.
6. Click OK.
Then from the start menu, run command, type ’services.msc’ without the quotation marks.
Find windows firewall, highlight and right click, then click properties.
At service status click Stop.
Then from the ’startup type’ drop down menu click ‘Disabled’.
Click Apply, then OK.
Reboot.
After the reboot I received a window asking what type of network I would like, I chose Home/Private.
Then Control Panel, Network & Sharing Center.
Should be a Private Network now, click Customize.
In open window click Merge or Delete Network locations.
If there are 2 click on the 1 not being used then click Merge.
In the open window select the 1 being used and click Merge, Apply/OK.
That’s all folks, good to go.

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