Network discovery wont turn on?

FatRakoon · 26 Sep 2009 at 22:18

Ok, plain and simply, I cannot get it to talk to my network?

It sees it there, but iot says that the network settings are incompatible?

WTF?

Anyway, just to get it to talk for now, I removed all encryption and left the router open, but it made no difference at all.

Anyway, on the LapTop I saw that the Network discovery was off and when I tried to enable it, it stayed off after I tried to apply?

Anyway, I have tried a few little things, but Im no networking expert, so, can anyone point me in the right direction?

theheyes · 26 Sep 2009 at 23:10

Is the network you're connecting to defined as "home" or "public"? If you are connected to a public network then Windows turns off a lot of sharing services for obvious reasons.

FatRakoon · 26 Sep 2009 at 23:56

I dont know to be honest... Its a brand new Laptop, and there was nothing about how to set the thing up...

I mean, if I do anythign to change the network, a dialog box comes up asking this, and I have always clicked on HOME, but this has not come up for me at all.

Can I force it to come up? - I will have a go clearly at looking for the required info, but in the mean-time, any chance you can point me?

Dont get me wrong, Im no Network Guru, but Im not a plonker either, but this is seemingly missing everythign to do with networking, almost as if it has been written to do just that, its bloody awkward and so when it coems down to the real nitty gritty, its stopping me.

FatRakoon · 27 Sep 2009 at 00:54

I found this ( and a number of other similar ways ) but they all assume that I have a network working already.

I have not yet been able to get this to connect to anything.

1. Click Start and click Control Panel.
2. Select Network and Internet.
3. Select Network and Sharing Center.
4. Click the Customize option beside your network connection.
5. Select the network location that you want to use.
6. Click Close.

----------

ADDITIONAL

Ok, I have gone through everythign that I can think of.
You are correct in that its kind of on a PUBLIC network, but the problem here is that I cannot change a network from PUBLIC to HOME because I need to be able to log on to the network in order to change it, but since I cannot actually get any form of network to connect in the first place, its not going to let me do that at all.

Its clearly the suppliers of this junk laptop that have put some restrictive software on thats doing this surely?

My only course I feel is to just accept my loss and give it back as is or wipe the thign and put on a normal copy of Visa, but then its chock full of kids games that came with it, so...

FatRakoon · 27 Sep 2009 at 12:44

Ok, another additional...

I have done it.

At least its talking to my router and the internet.

I seem to have somehow managed to change it from public to private for the wireless, but it keps showing the wireless as public ( but unable to connect ) and the Ethernet as private ( and obviously connecting ) but it just would not change the wireless from public to private.

Anyway, I did lots of messing about and I clarly dont know at what point it managed to go, but its clearly what you said... Public was not letting Network discovery work, but private did and thats when it started to go better... I have also had to change my wireless encryption too actually... Its been on WEP/64 for yonks and now its on WPA so maybe that might have helped too... I dont know, bit of this bit of that.

Either way many thanks mate.

theheyes · 27 Sep 2009 at 13:03

To be honest the whole public/private thing had me scratching my head at first and I'm no stranger to networking - it's more a case of trying to work out what Windows is doing.

It's a good feature but I think the whole "network and sharing" panel in Vista and Windows 7 holds your hand too much and buries a lot of options that are easily accessible in XP.

Glad you managed to get it sorted anyway.

FatRakoon · 27 Sep 2009 at 19:05

The thing is, that I have had issues for sure, but this time, it was somethign different.

Usually, I can get it to connect, and as long as you can see the network you are tryign to connect to, its simply a matter of making sure that the right encryption infois used and it connects but no matter what I was doing, it just didnt let me play and even when I did everythign I knew and lots that I didnt, it was still going against me.

I have done a lot of networking repairs over the years, sometimes caused by wrecked configs and sometimes by infections that deliberately corrupt your networking, but this was somethign else.