Win7 no internet connection at startup but works after pinging gateway

OK so i upgraded some of our PCs from a old machines running XP to a new DELL running Win7 Professional 32 Bit - I am on a wired LAN with a server and separate gateway/firewall PC

When I start my PC everything is just fine - connects to the network etc and I start receiving my e-mails from exchange BUT I get the little yellow exclamation on my network connection and the the 'No Internet' message

When I start a command box and ping the gateway I then have internet connection

I have to do this every time I shut down/re-start - this happens on the other Win7 PCs on the network - I also have a laptop running Win7 but this connects wirelessly and never has the issue

I have a guy across the road who is on a small network connected to us wirelessly - his machine will need to ping three or four times a day

Our IT guy gave up so i am looking for some clues as to where i might start looking - and why is this only with Windows 7 machines?

Thanks in advance

Welcome to the Seven Forums!

Here is a link to more than you ever wanted to know about what W7 does to determine if it has an internet connection:
Appendix H: Network Connectivity Status Indicator and Resulting Internet Communication in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2

For your setup, it appears that none of the things that W7 tries gives it the return that it is expecting. This might be caused by the gateway/firewall that you are using. Your pinging seems to make W7 happy

If I'm understanding your post correctly, everything works - it is just an annoyance that W7 indicates no internet connection when in fact the connection is fine. As a work around, you could have the ping occur automatically with each boot.

As far as the guy across the road connecting via wireless - it could be that his wireless card is set to sleep when not used - thus losing its connection. He could just run a constant ping:

ping google.com -t