Microsoft Windows Troubleshooting Guide
- Introduction
- Malware Removal
- Fixing Networking Problems
- Repairing a System that Won't Boot
- Optimizing Windows
Basic Network Troubleshooting
Ocassionally I come across problems with Windows Networking that are somewhat easy to troubleshoot, others are not as easy. This page will attempt to give you simple troubleshooting steps to fix various networking issues that occur. These steps will hopefully track the problem down so you can fix it easily.
One of the first steps in troubleshooting network problems is the fact that you may have Malware preventing the network from working. If you suspect that you may have Malware, I recommend first scanning for and removing the Malware by following the previous sections in this guide.
Checking Internet Explorer's Settings
Occasionally, if you cannot access the Internet, the problem may simply be that a setting in Internet Explorer is wrong. I am not sure if Malware adjusts this setting or something else, but I have seen this mulitple times.
Checking Internet Explorer's LAN Settings and Ensuring it is Not Using a Proxy Server
The fix for this is to simply open the Internet Explorer Settings, by launching Internet Explorer, then selecting "Tools -> Internet Settings". Then once the Settings are opened, click on the "Connection Tab", then open the "LAN Settings" option by clicking on that button.
Once the LAN Settings options is opened, ensure that your system is not set to using a Proxy (unless of course you are using a Proxy). If it was set to use a Proxy, uncheck that option and click OK, then click OK to close the Internet Explorer Settings. Try accessing a web site and hopefully the page will now come up. Note that even if you may use Firefox, this setting may (not always) prevent Firefox from accessing the Internet as well.
Checking the IP Address Information
Modern networking revolves around the TCP/IP networking stack and Windows is no exception. So for basic troubleshooting, we are going to look at all the components of the TCP/IP Stack on your system.
The first step is to ensure that your Network adapter is getting an IP address from a DHCP Server (unless you have statically assigned the IP address on your system). To do this you can either open a command prompt and type in "ipconfig /all" to gather the required information, or open the Network Connections Control Panel Utility and double click on your network connection. This will open the Status Page of your Network Adapter, now open the Support Tab, then click on the "Details" button to get more information for that connection.
Viewing the Network Status and the Detailed Information of you Network Adapter.
The information you want to get is the following:
- IP Address
- DNS Server(s)
- Gateway
IP Address - This is your "number" on your network (and possibly the Internet if you don't use a Router). It is a unique number on the network (no one else will have that address). If you do get an IP address from a DCHP Server (most routers will give out IP Addresses in this way) and the IP address starts with "169.254." means that your DHCP server did not give out an IP Address and Windows automatically assigned one. If this happens, restart your Router/Firewall, then your computer to see if it assigns an IP Address.
DNS Server(s) - This is the IP Address of a DNS Server(s) that your computer will use to get IP Addresses from the Domain Names you type in the address bar of your Browser. For instance, you will type "www.google.com" in your browser and the DNS Server translates it into "74.125.47.99".
Gateway - This is the address of your Router or the ISPs computer that you must access the Internet through to get outside of your local network.
Now, using the above information, you can troubleshoot your connection problem.
The first step is to ping your gateway address in a command prompt, or if you have a Firewall/Gateway device with a web page configuration utility, enter the gateway address into a browser.
Checking the Gateway using the Ping command and Using the Router's Web Config Page
If the ping command returns Reply information or the Router's Web Page comes up you know that the Router is working correctly. If it doesn't, there is either something wrong with the Gateway/Router/Firewall or your connection to the network. Try restarting the Router/Firewall or trying another network cable. If you are using a wireless connection, open the Wireless connection properties and remove your saved connection information and try to connect to the wireless network again.
If the Gateway is working, the next thing to check is the DNS Server. The easiest way to check this on a Windows based computer is to simply "ping" a hostname. To do this, open a command prompt and type in "ping www.google.com" and press enter. This will attempt to ping that hostname by first translating the hostname into an IP address. If this translation fails you will get a "host not found error", otherwise the translation will occur and it will show the IP address of the hostname and attempt to communicate with it.
Note that some Internet hosts will not respond to a ping command, and if the ping command does come back with an IP address with no reply results, your DNS Server is working properly.
If the DNS Server is not working, but your gateway is working and you are using an outside DNS Server (not your router), you could try to manually enter a DNS Server to use that is open on the Internet, a quick google search should bring up a list, one site that I found is here. If this still doesn't fix your problem, check out the next section on how to reset your Winsock and TCP/IP Stack in Windows.
Trouble with "Seeing" Windows Shares
Ocassionally I get emails from people stating that they cannot "see" other Windows shares off of other machines, especially Samba Servers. Most of the time, the fix for this is to simply enable Netbios over TCP in your network settings. This is especially true if you are trying to use Windows Networking over a VPN connection without a DNS Server configured.
Opening the Advanced TCP/IP Properties Page and Enabling NetBIOS over TCP/IP
To enable NetBIOS over TCP/IP, simply click on the Properties of your Network Connection, then double click on the TCP/IP protocol. This will bring up the TCP/IP Properties Page, then click on the "Advanced" button to open the Advanced Properties. The NetBIOS setting is located under the WINS tab, change it to enable and click OK and close out of the opened property boxes. You should now be able to "See" all the other Windows Machines or Samba Servers on your network.
