Resolved Inconsistent network behaviour

My Internet connection is via a LAN cable to a gateway device. When I block network traffic from my firewall, the network icon in the system tray sometimes, though not always, changes to "˜unidentified network’. When I unblock the firewall, it sometimes, but not always, correctly changes back to my Internet connection. When it fails to change back, I can sometimes, though not always, get it to work by disabling it and then re-enabling it. When this doesn’t work, nothing I do will bring it back. The only way to get it to work again is to reboot, after which everything is fine until the next time.

I also still use XP, with the same firewall and the same Internet connection (different computer, though). With XP, however, I never have any problem with the network adapter. I can block and unblock traffic as often as I like and the system always responds immediately and without problem. I would like to understand, if possible, why this behaviour occurs and if there is anything I can do, other than rebooting, to get the connection back. I guess I also can’t help wondering why Microsoft always seems to mess up things in new OS versions that worked perfectly well before. I don’t understand why Win7 can’t seem to cope with this in a consistent fashion when XP has no problem.

 

Hi rikki, Is this the procedure you follow:Turn Windows Firewall on or off
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-nz/...on-off#turn-windows-firewall-on-off=windows-7
There are many differences between XP and W7. Neil.

 

No I use my own firewall. It has a button to block all traffic. It is just the handiest way to do this. It works fine under XP. With Win7 this sometimes causes the network connection to change to unknown and then I can't get it to change back.

 

What is the Firewall that you use? Is it compatible with W7? Neil.

http://support2.microsoft.com/mats/windows_firewall_diagnostic/

 

It is compatible with all Windows versions. It is called On-Line Armour. In the meantime I have found another solution. I discovered that disabling and enabling the network adapter seems to work without problems (unlike XP, where it causes crashes). I did have to go through the usual Windows circles to get a shortcut to it on the taskbar, which no longer works for non-executables like it did in XP. Why oh why do they insist on 'improving' things that already work perfectly well?

 

It's called progress. Neil.

 

The original issue I posted about here, how to disable and re-enable network connectivity via the firewall, hasn't really been solved but a workaround was found by disabling and enabling the network adapter instead so I have marked this thread as solved.