Unidentified network

Question

Vista was working fine on my 640m / E1405 until a couple of days ago when I first noticed that the network icon had a red cross over it. Internet access has been unaffected however I now can't see the other PC on my network and clicking on the network icon now says 'unidentified network'. Nothing has changed on my system other than me disabling the wireless temporarily via 'quickset' in order to save battery life (it has now been reactivated). I've done a system restore to see if that would fix it (it didn't). Any ideas? Message Edited by Alexwils on 05-29-2007 10:14 AM

GioAguilar · Answer

Have you tried reseting the internet connection? Go to Network and Sharing Center, you should see the map of your computer, the modem/router and the internet, click on the red X you may see in there and try the options there, once worked on mine, but i wasn't using a wireless.

Alexwils · Answer

no, unfortunatly if I go to the network and sharing centre it just says 'unknown'. No map or anything. There was one but it's now been replaced with this unknown message. Thankfully, the shares still work and I can see my other PC and it can see the laptop but it's annoying not knowing what's going on. Any other ideas?

inspiron_wvhpe · Answer

Open Network & Sharing Center and make sure Network Discovery is turned on turned. Also going to manage network connections then right click on your current connection and choose repair this just resets your network adapter.

danafaye · Answer

Completely reinstalling Windows Vista?

Alexwils · Answer

Yep, it's not as bad as you think. It's much less painful than doing it with XP. You will have to reinstall all your programs though.

Alexwils · Answer

I fixed it in the end with a full reinstall. Actually it worked quite well, the laptop now runs better without all the Dell bundled stuff on it and Vista backs up your old windows / users folder so you don't lose anything either.

danafaye · Answer

I have a similar problem.  I have an Inspiron 640m running Vista Home Basic, and I tried connecting it to a wireless network.  It connects to the network itself, but I have no connectivity to the Internet.  In the system tray it keeps trying to 'Identify' the network but always ends up 'Unidentified'.  It did connect and the Internet worked once before the security was set up on the network.  The security is WPA-Personal and I've connected to another network using that security many times with no problems.  I've reconfigured my wireless network adapter numerous times as well.

Windows General

Was this post helpful?