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. Â Everything seems fine in their adapter settings for IP and browser seems fine, and no viruses. Â 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? Â (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. Â (start -> run : Â 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.