Win7 ofice AD Domain machine on home WLAN

chev,

I really do suspect that the Domain membership of these two Win7 beasts is at least a partial cause in this affair.

Oddities include:
1. Both Win7 machines worked on the WEP WLAN for a year.
2. Dell-A worked on WPA-PSK/TKIP for 40 hours, Dell-B refused to connect from the beginning.
3. Dell-A, Dell-B both happily connect to WPA-PSK/TKIP with "Alt Config" fixed-IP/fixed-DNS

Unknowns include:
4. Will the Win7 machines connect to a WPA-PSK/AES that they have happily connected to for the past year (ie is this some paranoid new Win7 update getting in the way -info here is that Dell-A did get an update +/- 24 hours before it crapped out - no idea if Dell-A rebooted to complete the update after the download, BUT Dell-B did not connect to anything for 8 days so **certainly** did NOT get updated in that period ...and it has similar symptoms).

I'm not in front of the server until next week & will play with your findings then

Thanks for your efforts - I will report back.

Chris

Hmmm,

Turns out that my memory is crap: the other "home" WLAN was also WPA-PSK/TKIP.
The Win7 boxes connected without issue using the "alternative config" (gateway is the same 192.168.1.1, fixed IPs are outside DHCP range, and although it's a different ISP in the other "home", I can still use the same hard-coded DNS from the alt config)

This is all very fine when moving from one of my "home" WLANs to another (I control the WLAN setup), but it is obviously total rubbish for roaming in general (airports etc), so I need to get to grips with this sooner or later.

re: chev65 suggesting possible Win7 >> Server2003 connection issues - I don't have this problem: the Win7 machines connect (wired) to the office domain without a hiccup.

Chris

Maybe...

There are zero error messages beyond what you would expect from a machine without a network connection.
Win7 diagnostics chases its own tail for a while but doesn't come up with anything interesting or useful.
I don't have the Win7 boxes here today to try any tests.

Maybe not...

The Win7 boxes will not connect to my WLAN using DHCP. Connection icon is a park-bench with no option to change.

Using a manual IPv4 config instead of DHCP (or with DHCP and an "Alternative Config" on the second tab) works. I get the possibility to switch the park-bench to a ?? house (I think it is a house) and it all works.

The network shouldn't go from untrusted to trusted when going from DHCP to FixedIP ...or should it?



What I think I know so far:

My DHCP server is working: it feeds several other WLAN devices including Vista machines and the Squeezebox.

WLAN and Win7-WLAN-settings are fine (SSID, PSK, signal, channel): Win7 connects with manual IPv4 config.

Win7 hardware failure is not the cause: same symptoms on two identical Win7 machines.

Win7 updates are not the cause: one machine lost it's ability to connect after 40 hours of successful connection; the other machine had been OFF for several days - absolutely no connection to anything so no updates.

Human intervention is not the cause: the first Win7 machine was happily connected before I went to lunch and dead whan I got back - the house was empty when the Win7 machine lost it's ability to connect.

Both Win7 boxes continue to connect (wired) to the office AD domain.

Chris