IE6 won't use wireless card [was XP wireless not working]

Thanks to everyone who responded to the last thread. I finally discovered that the Netgear Super-G card was intermittently failing and probably just happened to work when I tried it in another computer.

I replaced the failing card with a new one, but now I have a new problem. IE6 refuses to work with the card unless my office VPN is active. I tried asking in IE6 specific forums, but after a few days I've gotten no useful answers so I thought I'd try here.

The situation is this: my office laptop has built-in 11b radio, but at home I have a Netgear Super-G network so I use a WG511T card instead. The laptop also has a Cisco VPN set up by office IT. Normally, I should be able to use either radio, use my own network with the VPN disabled (and IE proxy settings disabled) and then connect the VPN to use my office network. This is the way I used my old Netgear card and it still works the same with the built-in 11b radio.

However, with the new Netgear card, IE6 won't work unless the VPN is connected. When the VPN is disabled, all I get is "can't display page

- can't find server or DNS error" regardless of proxy settings. I get the same error even if I type the server's address manually so it seems like IE6 isn't even trying.

Other net apps (Outlook, ftp, ping, trace, nslookup) are working normally regardless of the VPN - when VPN is connected they route through my office, otherwise they route through my home network and ISP. Only IE6 demands the VPN be active.

I can't find any settings different between the connection using the new card and the one using the built-in radio - both are configured through DHCP from my router and the settings all appear to be correct. Naturally the routing tables all change when the VPN is active. All the IE6 settings appear to be the same regardless of connection. I've tried uninstalling/reinstalling the Netgear card, flushing the DNS and browser caches when the card is in use, enabling/disabling the IE6 proxy settings, etc. Nothing has worked. IE6 seems to be completely ignoring the proxy settings and just expecting the VPN all the time.

There don't seem to be any settings for specific connections or devices in the Cisco VPN - it seems to just take over everything when it's active.

I don't have any way of reinstalling IE6 (or anything else). Is there something I can check in the registry or in some setup file(s)? Any other thoughts or suggestions? At this point I'm completely baffled.

George

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Reply to
George Neuner
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It sounds like your laptop is configured to only use the Internet service that your "office" is set up for. Check the DNS servers settings, whoich might be entered in the Network Connections

Reply to
smlunatick

Hi,

Thanks for responding. I've checked DNS settings - all connections are configured through DHCP. The VPN takes over all routing when enabled, but when it's disabled the connection settings are correct for my home router.

What's confusing me is that everything worked as expected with the old Netgear Super-G card ... but now that I have a new card, IE alone refuses to use it while all my other network apps work as before. And everything, including IE, works as before using the internal 11b radio. I can't figure out why there is a difference with the new hardware.

George

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Reply to
George Neuner

Have you consider trying to use your "old" 11b adapter, as a test?

Did you "uninstall" the odle Netgear drivers from the PC?

Reply to
smlunatick

All applications work with the built-in 11b radio. They all worked with the old (now broken) Netgear Super-G card as well. Everything

*except* IE6 works with the new Netgear Super-G card.

Yes. The new card is a different model so I had to uninstall the old drivers and install the new. I ran Registry Mechanic afterward to clean up anything the uninstall missed.

Honestly, IE6 is the only network application that won't work properly with the new card. I am completely baffled.

George

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Reply to
George Neuner

Hi In principle I would not "mess/; with office setting. However if you are allowed may be this application can help.

formatting link
(MVP-Networking).

Reply to
Jack (MVP-Networking).

Another configuration switcher:

For just the networks setup switching:

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

...

Round about now, I would say to myself "well, IE is a load of sh&* anyway, I'll just upgrade to Firefox and get the benefit of stabler, more reliable, safer browsing etc". No kidding.

Otherwise you could try upgrading to IE7, see if that fixes it. My only remaining guess is that one of your network card installers has "upgraded" some DLL in the TCP stack to a version that IE6 doesn't like.

Reply to
Mark McIntyre

Have checked your proxy settings? Other options on the Connections tab? Note that all wi-fi connections go under the "LAN" category in Connections.

--PA

Reply to
Pavel A.

Yes, this is the obvious thing to check first; in IE6 go to tools>Internet options >Connections>LAN and make sure proxy is off and it detects the network automatically.

Reply to
seaweedsl

Reply to
Jack (MVP-Networking).

... distributed preinstalled on virtually every computer when you buy it, along with an OS you have almost no choice but to buy.

Millions of people are having unprotected sex too. Just because it 'works for them' doesn't make it advisable. :-)

Absolutely, on both counts.

The unanswerable question is - how many of those millions of IE users would have voluntarily downloaded it from MS's website if they'd had some other browser preinstalled instead instead? Or if the Windows installer had offered a choice of 5 browsers in alphabetic order with none preselected?

I presume you ignored this as it didn't fit with your preconceptions that I was a rabid anti-MS freetard? Just for reference I'm posting this from a machine with installs of XP of Linux, each for its different purpose.

Reply to
Mark McIntyre

Create a new user on that machine. See if that user account can then use IE to connect.

If so then your other user account has gotten it's profile settings screwed up.

If not then there's something screwed up with the card's configuration.

Try a new account to verify what does and doesn't work with it.

Reply to
Bill Kearney

It's a work provided laptop. I am essentially a power user but I don't have all admin rights under the security policy. I can install additional software under my own account (not globally) provided I take responsibility for it. I have installed a couple of critical (to me) tools, but in general I don't mess with the machine much. Service and driver installs can sometimes be problematic, but I didn't have any obvious trouble with the new card drivers - AFAICT it went smoothly (I did it twice actually, uninstalled and installed again when IE didn't work).

WRT trying IE7 (which someone else suggested) ... we have some specialized document handling software that's tied to IE6 and Office

2K. IT won't yet guarantee it to work with newer versions. We just got XP on our laptops late last year so I'm not holding my breath for updates.

George

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Reply to
George Neuner

Then have work fix it.

Or if it's possible and company policy doesn't prevent it, have another valid user log onto the machine and see if IE6 works for them.

Famous last words. Heh.

Won't guarantee doesn't mean won't work. But given your restricted privileges on the machine it would probably be a bad idea to go monkeying with the IE6/IE7 overlap issues.

I'm guessing the profile for your account has gotten screwy. I've seen it happen on machines of my own. I've had to go so far as to trash that user profile and start all over. IE just got unfixably confused about how to deal with connections. Granted, this was on a machine that was several years old and had been through a number of network card changes and VPN setups. There's a series of layers that IE depends upon to figure out how to "connect". It shouldn't be that complicated, but there it is. Proxies, routing, vpn, dial-up, domain membership, etc. It's all tied together behind the scenes. When it works it's great, but when it gets screwed up it's a royal PITA to untangle.

Try having a cow-orker log onto the box and use IE6 for something that is known to fail for you. If their session works, well, you've got a profile problem. You might want to wander into Microsoft's technet articles to see if they discuss this and suggest fixes. This might be worthwhile as work's approach might be to just nuke your profile and force you to start over. This will upset any other apps or configurations you've got set up. But it may, in the end, deleting and recreating the profile may be the only solution.

-Bill Kearney

Reply to
Bill Kearney

The reason you need the VPN is that your default gateway is probably pointing to the gateway IP on the office router. That's NOT the correct way to setup a VPN on a mobile device. However, you may be in luck if only IE6 is NOT working.

Start IE6 and go unto: Tools -> Internet Options -> Connections My first guess(tm) is that you have it set to always dial the VPN connection or some kind of profile that points to the old wireless card. Try it with "Never dial a connection" and see if that fixes IE6.

If not, my 2nd guess(tm) is to select "Lan Settings" on that page, record the current settings so you can put them back if necessary, and clear out whatever is in the "Proxy Server" settings. Also, make sure that "Automatically Detect Settings is *NOT* checked.

I dunno if these guesses will help, but it's worth trying. Otherwise, I suggest you have your company IT people set it up exactly the way you want it.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Let me guess.... you're in the insurance industry? I have customer with a mess of computers that can't use IE7 thanks to some really awful software written for some obscure client rating software. The programmers decided to build in their own browser in their software rather than use a stand alone browser. This was probably done to "insure compatibility" or some such rot. The way it works is that it uses the Windoze Explorer libraries with a custom front end. There are even commerical and free apps that do this:

(dead but still works)

Quicken and Quickbooks also use the IE libraries for their internal browser. Quickbooks 2005 and some other versions literally don't work on machines with IE7 installed. However, there are patches available:

Some things didn't quite work the same way in IE7 as in IE6. Unfortunately, they usually result in a less than graceful applications crash. My guess(tm) is that this is why you're stuck with IE6.

I really don't consider it a problem because there are pleny of better and safer browsers available. I use Mozilla Firefox. For testing web pages, I also have Safari, Opera, Slimbrowser, NetCaptor, and Maxthon. I won't install Netscape as it tramples on Firefox. If the security policies are sufficient screwed up that IE6 can't be fixed, try one of these. I suggest Firefox. Incidentally, it's worth the effort just to use the various Add-on's.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

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