No Internet Access, Disable Microsoft Virtual miniport adapter


I don’t know how users have been managing to get into a bind with this, but twice in the last couple weeks I’ve been called by people with no internet access, yet they still have server file shares working.  Everything seems fine in their adapter settings for IP and browser seems fine, and no viruses.  I can even tunnel in SSH to their RDP port 3389 and remote access the computer.

But then I discover this Microsoft Virtual miniport adapter thing in their network connections. What the heck is that? And why is it even there?  (don’t answer, I don’t really care, unless it happens more, and it still won’t prevent people from screwing up their computers.)

Anyway, all I needed to do was disable this thing, and the internet worked just fine, users are happy. Open up an “administrator” command prompt.  (start -> run :  type “cmd” and hit CTL-SHIFT-Enter – that’s how I get to it)

Type these two commands:

netsh wlan stop hostednetwork
netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=disallow

It complained to me that it needed a reboot, but I didn’t and it worked anyway. I figure they can reboot later and get back to work right now. :)

 

PS: I found some information on the Wireless Hosted Network in Windows 7.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd815243(VS.85).aspx

I don’t want to take time to read it, but at a glance, looks like it turns your laptop into a Wifi hotspot. Too bad it screws up you LAN connection in doing so. If I had to guess it probably changed your routing table and that’s why it breaks the internet or any other external network access. Not sure why anyone would want this, but I am sure there’s some interesting use cases I haven’t thought of.