I've been having the same problem with my laptop which runs Vista.

I tried everything here, but what did it for me was I removed everything from my USB ports (I had a wireless mouse) and then booted up my laptop and for some reason it connected...

Don't know if this will help, but you could try.

First of all - I just want to say that this seems a great forum and from going over the posts I have learnt a great deal hence I have joined this forum as this is exactly the issue I am having issue with.

First of all, in our home network we have 3 XP Home machines, a Vista Home Premium 32Bit, a PSP and my Vista Home Premium 64 Bit. My 64 bit Vista machine is the one having local access only problems which are annoyingly on and off to the extent that internet on this machine is not very usable at all. Eg after a clean reinstall of vista activiating over the wifi gets 99% through and times out and switches to local only, then only later to reconnect to the internet (I can always activate again over the phone so this isn't an issue).

- Clearly our internet connection works as all the other devices work fine.
- Checked the 32 bitVista machine which works fine it uses both IPv4 and IPv6 - I can post the full icponfig/all if anyone is interested in the comparison.
- I have tried to manually assign an IP address, Subnet mask etc for IPv4 and have tried using only IPv4.
- I have also followed the advice to only set up a connection via the Connect to the Internet tool in the welcome centre (which at times can set up the connection and then of course later the connection drops).
- In addition, I have tried the DHCP fix kindly put together by JohnathanYew

I've never encountered this much difficulty setting up a wifi connection before, even when I have put virtually the same wifi card in a relatives computer (in a different network which had a BT Homehub as a router again though 32bit Vista). The two main variables different therefore are the routers (mine is a Belkin F5D7632-4) and whether the OS is 32 or 64. I am tempted by looking for a "Vista Certified Router ADSL" to replace our Belkin one if it is an issue of the router not working up to Vista's standards for DHCP. I just don't want to go down this alley if it is a client end problem on my Vista 64.

Currently my IPConfig/all gives the following...

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.0.6000]
Copyright (c) 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Users\David>ipconfig/all

Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : Athena
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : shuttleworth_road

Wireless LAN adapter Wireless Network Connection 1:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : shuttleworth_road
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Realtek 8185 Extensible 802.11b/g Wireles
s Device
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-17-3F-32-95-19
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::30fe:6a81:b162:1cb7%12(Preferred)
IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.2.33(Preferred)
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : 15 March 2008 18:22:19
Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : 16 March 2008 18:22:18
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.2.1
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.2.1
DHCPv6 IAID . . . . . . . . . . . : 301995839
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.2.1
NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

Tunnel adapter Local Area Connection* 6:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : shuttleworth_road
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Microsoft ISATAP Adapter
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::5efe:192.168.2.33%13(Preferred)
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.2.1
NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Disabled

Tunnel adapter Local Area Connection* 9:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 02-00-54-55-4E-01
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
IPv6 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 2001:0:cf2e:308c:289e:df3:3f57:fdde(Prefe
rred)
Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::289e:df3:3f57:fdde%10(Preferred)
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : ::
NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Disabled

Any advice on what steps anyone would take would of course be greatly appreciated. As I mentioned the connection from this drops on a regular basis to local and then reconnects.

hi! i work support for a major isp. i usually make my customers disable their wireless adapter itself and then restart their computers...after the reboot enable the wireless adapter then try to connect to your wireless connection...you did say that your cuz is able to connect to your wireless connection so i assume the router/gateway is connected and correctly configured...i'd say about 85-90 percent of the customers that i talk to are able to connect after we do this steps...but youll have to do it over and over everytime you reconnect...one of my customres did check back witb me as recently as 5 hours ago and told me that his wireless adapter manufacturer now has new updated drivers and its supposed to fix this minor glitch...its supposedly was a registry issue with the vista...at least thats what support from his manufaturer told him....hope that works....if your issue is fixed and im late...well...here's to wishing you always have a good one!!!!

Vista Sufferers,

I solved my issue with the download of a new driver for my wireless network adapter. (Atheros)

Good luck to all. I hope this resolves everyones troubles.

7/24

Hello everyone,

A couple week ago I had the vista local access problem aswel.. I tried all the suggestion on this thread and nothing fixed the bug.
But now, I solved it on a crazy way. This is what I did: In the running Vista I grap the electrical plug off my pc.. so the pc falls off. Wait ten seconds and put the plug back. Start the pc in normal mode and I get a normal ip from my router.
I hope this solution will work for others!

hey! i was browsing so many sites and forums because i was having the same problem with the same laptop (dv6000). i did what you said, i disabled IPv6 in wireless connection properties and then i went to IPv4 properties and chose "obtain ip address automatically" then poof, that's it, i was suddenly connected to wireless internet. the next thing i did was register to daniweb. thanks bro!!

Hi there, I got my new computer a few days ago. It is a Windows Vista 64bit Machine and it has Service Pack 1 on it and I have literally tried everything to try and get my internet connection going and nothing works. I have tried various suggestions here, I connected Belkin and they gave me a guide on reinstalling a new driver, I have tried everything I can find and it will still not connect wirelessly. It connected when I took it downstairs and used the cable, but apart from that, nothing.

I really don't know what else I can do apart from throwing it out the window and hoping that might knock some sense into it.

I'm having a Vista Local Access Only problem as well. Mine is a little different though so I'm not certain if I should have started my own thread or it is ok here.

Anyway, I provide tech support for a small company. One of my users has a Toshiba Portege M700 tablet notebook running Windows Vista Business 32-bit that is approximately 2 months old.

It is connected through a wired LAN connection at an office with several other computers. There is a Dell laptop that is also running Vista Business and the others are all running XP. Some of them are wired connections and some are wireless. None of the others are having problems.

The computer worked fine, until this past Monday. Ever since then, the network connection has been "Local Access Only". It is connected to the network though as the computer can access files on the server, including e-mail.

As some of the threads here suggested, I've tried removing the battery, disabling IP v6 and the autotuner. None of them have resolved the problem. By uninstalling the network card and allowing Windows to reinstall it, brings the internet back, temporarily. By the next day, it was back to being Local Access Only.

Toshiba technical support was no help - the woman I spoke to did not even know that Local Access Only was a common issue with Vista. The one thing she did tell me is that there have been alot of Windows updates lately and that as these are installed, they could be overwriting the existing network drivers causing us to have this error.

In some ways, that seemed logical to me, as the computer did work fine at first and uninstalling and reinstalling the driver resolved the issue (temporarily) and the machine is still downloading updates. However, if it were overwriting the drivers, wouldn't my user have been having problems with more then just the Internet? I got the impression that she knew very little of computers herself, but could read information to me off her knowledge base real well so I don't know whether there was any validity to what she told me or not. Does anyone?

If anyone has any permanent solutions to suggest (besides going back to XP, which I've thought about, believe me!), or even knows if what the Toshiba woman told me is correct, I would appreciate it.

check on the device manager what kind of network adapter the laptop is using and check for new updated drivers from the manufaturer of the network adapter itself.

Have you tried thoroughly stripping out your AV and firewall software? You may, if you are running Norton need to get hold of the tool to complete the removal. Once done reinstall the network adapter and then reboot. YOu should have a clean connection. The reinstall the AV/firewall and all should be OK. Mostly this problem is caused by misconfigured low level software running at startup. Best of luck.