Mac connects, Windows doesn't
DVS3
Newbie

My in-home network includes both Macs and Windows PC's.  Twice this week, my PC's have lost connectivity to the internet but the Macs have not.  The loss of connectivity is both WiFi and wired.  All my PC's have Norton 360 which I suspect may be the source of the problem.  The loss of connectivity occurred with both Windows 7 and XP.  I restored connectivity in both cases by cycling my Actiontec router off and back on and then rebooting the PC's.  The recycling the router alone did not work, I had to reboot the PC's.  Rebooting the PC's without cycling the router did not solve the problem.

I suspect the Norton software because during the loss of connectivity, Norton is apparently still able to connect to the internet to check for updates.

Does anybody have any idea of what is going on here?  Is there a simpler way to restore connectivity than recycling and rebooting?

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Re: Mac connects, Windows doesn't
viafax999
Community Leader
Community Leader

Restoring connectivity at the pc can be performed by using the ipconfig command in the dos box

ipconfig /release then

ipconfig /renew

However that won't help you much if your request is being blocked before getting to the router

Does the network troubleshooter not give you any help?

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Re: Mac connects, Windows doesn't
DVS3
Newbie

Thanks.  I will give the ipconfig command a try if it happens again.

I did try the network troubleshooter twice the first time the problem appeared.  I do not remember the exact message the troubleshooter provided but it could not find the problem.  I know I should have tried recycling the router first, but the first time I lost connectivity, I thought the problem was just with my usual Windows 7 desktop and restored the system to an earlier date.  That obviously did not help and it was after that that I recognized that iPads and Macs still worked and that even Windows XP did not. 

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Re: Mac connects, Windows doesn't
eljefe2
Master - Level 1

I would suggest you try disabling, or even completely uninstalling, Norton on one of your PC's as a troubleshooting step.

The fact that Norton can connect to check for updates suggests to me that it may indeed be blocking other Interenet locations that you're trying to access.

Re: Mac connects, Windows doesn't
smith6612
Community Leader
Community Leader

I do suspect Norton is the likely candidate for the PCs being unable to connect. I've seen plenty of these cases. Remove Norton for the sake of things and see if access returns. Sometimes a program update comes around that breaks access, and a re-install is all that is needed. Away from that, you may wish to consider double checking your proxy settings as well within Internet Explorer, since Norton does have the ability to use it's own set of settings for proxy servers vs direct connections and also considering most programs listen to Internet Explorer's proxy settings.

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Re: Mac connects, Windows doesn't
DVS3
Newbie

Thanks.  I will give that a try if/when it happens again.

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Re: Mac connects, Windows doesn't
DVS3
Newbie

I don't know enought about proxy settings to ever change the defaults.  I usually use Firefox and there, the box saying "use system proxy settings" is checked.  I looked to see how IE was set and in it the proxy setting section said something like "automatically detect setting" and the proxy server box is not checked.

Those settings have worked fine for the year I have used the FIOS triple play.  If the problems continue, I will try to learn something about proxy settings and work on it.

Perhaps the next Norton update will correct the situation.

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Re: Mac connects, Windows doesn't
eljefe2
Master - Level 1

The more you describe your situation the more I suspect a Norton update caused your problem.

It's obviously up to you, but if I were having the problem and it persisted, I would do a complete uinstall of Norton and install Microsoft Security Essentials to see if it fixes the problem.  You can always revert to Norton if you want to.

FWIW, I've been using MSE since it came along and have had no problems related to it.

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