Fixing the local only internet access issue in Windows Vista

Published Sunday June 08, 2008

Details

Recently I had issues with Windows Vista where it would get on a network, but would only have local access (i.e. “Access: Local only” in the Network and Sharing Center). After spending about an hour and a half I finally stumbled across the solution. Once again, the solution was hidden in a forum, and the Microsoft knowledge base article was fairly hard to follow. So, here are the steps summarized for quickly fixing this¹.

First we have to find the name of network adapter that you are using to connect, you can skip this if you know the name of your network adapter.
1. Open Network and Sharing Center (Start > Control Panel > Network and Sharing Center)
2. Click on “Manage network connections” under “Tasks” on the left side.
3. Note the name of the device in “Device Name” column for the connection that you are using (e.g. Intel® PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection)
Now we have to find the GUID of this adapter.
1. Open the registry editor: Start > type in 'regedit’
2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\NetworkCards\
3. Look through the numbered sub-keys and jot down the “ServiceName” for the one that has the name of your network card in the “Description.”
4. Keep the registry editor open because we will be changing another key in the next step.
Once you have the GUID of the network then we have to toggle the broadcast flags.
1. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces
2. Now follow the resolution in the Microsoft knowledge base article
3. Make sure to set the DhcpConnForceBroadcastFlag as described in the “More Information” section of the knowledge base article.
Finally, restart the computer.

Hopefully, after restarting the computer you will be able to access the internet.

¹Disclaimer, before playing around with the registry make sure to back it up first.

Comments

The remedy suggested by the microsoft article didn't work for me. I have a Netgear DG834GT ADSL router, which I had previously been using with a Windows XP laptop. When I was forced to replace that laptop, its replacement was one running Windows Vista Home Premium and I immediately ran into connection problems. I could connect to AOL via the router if I used an ethernet cable but not wirelessly. For some reason the router would give the laptop an IP address when using the cable but not when I tried to connect wirelessly, which was when I got the local access only message. A call to AOL provided me with the remedy to this. What I had been doing was to use the WEP security method with another security facility offered by the router, called Access Control, which relies on allowing devices to connect only if their MAC addresses are those you specify in the router's wireless settings pages. I automatically assumed this would work with the new Vista laptop. This turned out to be incorrect. AOL told me I needed to use the WPA-PSK security method, and a little experimentation showed me that this only works if Access Control is not used. Since then I have been connecting wirelessly without problems on Vista and I would say that once the configuration was sorted out it's been just as reliable as when I had my old XP laptop.

This worked!!! Spent all morning trying everything. Thank you!

This is Crap. If you are using a Router. Try changing the wireless channel and reconnect to the network. If you do not have a router. Try to add the network manually. If it still not able to connect. Delete the preferred networks and try re connecting.

How do you change the wireless channel?

Hi Casey,

The channel is generally configured in your wireless router. Most of the operating systems pick up this configuration from the network so you shouldn't have to do anything on your computer once you have changed the channel on your router.

I am having problems connecting to the wireless network at my place of work with my HP Pavillion dv9000 Vista 64 machine. The company uses WPA-PSK and I can get connected but I get "Access: Local Only" displayed in the Network Activity, and cannot access the Internet at all? I contacted their support but they said to contact the laptop's OEM for possibly an updated driver? I was going to try using the fix mentioned here, but does this mean I would have to revert back to the previous settings for my network at home that works fine without any changes?

Any help would be a appreciated!
Thanks.

after intermittent problems with vista "forgetting" how to access the wireless, this seems to have been the fix I needed. thank you!

Disconnect if u are connected to internet. Hold down windows key and

type R > in Run windows type services.msc click on OK > Click on

Continue > Look for service 'winhttp web proxy auto-discovery service'

turn this service on and change its startup type to autmatic.

Disconnect ur connection and conenct it again .access local only' will

disappear.

i'm sorry, but this didn't work for me. Thanks though.

Thank you, this article fixed my problem, very helpful indeed, I don't think I would have totally understood the Microsoft article as written. What I can't understand is why the laptop and router worked fine for over 6 months and then suddenly stopped working.

Hi Mark. If you can connect to one network, but not the other then there is a good change that this could fix the problem. Generally the routers are "backwards compatible" with this change so this shouldn't affect your existing connection and you shouldn't have to make any changes there.

Good luck,
Farhan

Thanks for the info - it didn't work for me but at least I could follow the Knowledge base fix with your help.

I had this same problem, Network Access: Local Only on a Lenovo X310 laptop with Vista Business. The client could see all network drives and folders but could not access the internet. I tried many other "fixes" but all failed. After 2 hours of trouble-shooting and rebooting I found this article. It worked perfect. Now I'm happy and the client (my boss) is happy. Thanks!

Your fix helped but it is not the end all to my problem. I use fixed IPs on the local network and this fix won't work when the IP and DNS values are fixed and not established by DCHP.

Any ideas?

Sorry, Al, I haven't had to work with fixed IPs in a while. My guess would be that the DNS server isn't setup correctly.

wat do u mean by navigate to after you open the registry editor?

In the registry editor (regedit.exe) go to specified location in the tree on the left hand side. Every back slash denotes a level in the tree. Good luck.

I was advised my the company that supply my router to remove the 3rd party firewall I'd installed in addition to Vista. Problem went away.

What o u mean by"Make sure to set the DhcpConnForceBroadcastFlag as described in the “More Information” section of the knowledge base article" b4 that i have set it to "1",y need change back to "0".Cant understand

You need to set that to 0 so it stops sending the DHCP discovery packets. That article has details on what and why: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928233/en-us

I had a client who received some 'assistance' from their broadband support tech. He had them connect via ethernet to their router and hard-coded the IP settings to 192.168.1.64. This allowed access to the router and Internet ok.

Following the instructions above we could still only get a 'local' IP for the wireless connection. I found the problem was caused by the IP allocated to the ethernet port being the first address allocated by the DHCP server built in to the router!!!

As soon as I changed the ethernet IP to one outside of the DHCP pool (or anything other than the first one) the wireless was able to obtain a valid IP and give full Internet access.

If you hard-code any IP addresses for any devices ensure they are outside the DHCP pool so no conflicts arise with any device trying to obtain an automatic IP.

I hope this helps solve a few lingering headaches.

After upgrading my Bluetooth adapter driver, my wireless internet gave me the problem as listed above. After following these steps, the wireless is working again. I've been monitoring it for almost 3 weeks and no problems. Thanks for making this simple to follow!

This worked. I edited the register per microsoft link and IT WORKED! saved alot of down time...I will forward this site to others in need of IT support.

Thank you so much. This procedure worked and saved my day.

Thank you so much!!! I'm glad this worked..My brother was going crazy with out his internet. I feel pretty proud since im younger than him and I was able to fix the problem, with your article ofcourse =)..took a couple 'system restores' to actually work but Im glad it finally did! Thanks again =]

Lol :) I am glad this worked. Have fun!

After numerous other attempts at fixing the problem, this worked perfectly for me - thanks.

Are ther any Sure Fix for this issue.
Tried All the steps provided but got no solution. i have Huawei E156G modem with 3 and this issue happensonly in Vista tried the modem on XP and Win 7 the modem is working fine .... please help

This was one solutions that I was aware of. If you have the latest drivers for the card handy (or can download from manufacturer's site) then I would suggest completely removing the specific network card through Device Manager (check the option to delete the drivers). Once you have deleted the drivers and card then scan for hardware changes and reinstall the latest drivers. Doing this might work.

Good luck.

I tried the same it worked for 1 hr and then it gave "Local Access only" again. its a nightmare.
can i disable the IPV6 in the regedit.msc