VISTA & WIRELESS : HOW TO SOLVE LOCAL ACCESS ONLY?

Question

Thank you for your reading and possible answer(s),
UNABLE TO GET "LOCAL AND INTERNET ACCESS" UNDER VISTA, WHILE IT WAS POSSIBLE UNDER XP
I used to get connected "home-like" with XP to a "secondary wireless router" (SSID: Wlancomtrend - no authentication needed, no work group, signal strength: Excellent), which gets the internet signal from a "main wireless router", plugged to the DSL line (SSID: Wireless - no authenticatin needed, no work group, signal strength: Good / Low).
I am not the administrator of these routers. I used to get DNS automatically under TCPIP properties.
VISTA DOESN'T LET ME ACCESS THE INTERNET, THOUGH I MANAGE TO CONNECT TO THE SAME ROUTER
It says: "Access: local only"; and under Network and sharing center it says "unidentified network". I gess I'm a bit unfamiliar with this OS and do not master all its settings. I also marked off security essentials like Firewall under Windows security center, to prevent any possible internet access blocking. My laptop power plan is also set to "High performance".
- I suspect my ID network is not well configured. Under System properties (right click on the "My computer icon") > Computer name > network ID > Join a Domain or Workgroup: I'm trying to keep the "This is a home computer" setting, but it goes back to "This computer is part of a business network" all the time, even after reboot. How to fix this, by the way?
- Under Network and Sharing center > Customize the current connection > location type > i set it to "public".
Other factors maybe irrelevant: / Sharing discovery > Network discovery: "On" / > file sharing: "On".
I get DNS automatically under TCPIP properties (as with XP).
A couple of days ago, VISTA managed to get internet with the "main wireless router" (SSID: Wireless - no authentication needed, signal strength: Good / Low). I just tried to set ID network to "This is a home computer" and rebooted. Under the network window, I also tried to tick a network location or workgroup. This may not be important, though.
I STILL JUST GET LOCAL ACCESS ONLY WITH MY WIRELESS CONNECTION UNDER VISTA
Any help? Molta mercé / Many thanks
Also tried:
- Automatically Detect Settings checked in internet options
- Obtain an IP address automatically under TCPIP properties
- Enable DHCP
- Disable User Account Control in Security Center
- Disable most of the Vista security stuff
- Remove and set up all connections
- IPv6 off
- etc.
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Answer 1

Well, I have been thoroughly frustrated by this networking problem in Vista.  What is so INSIDIOUS about it, is that it can happen spontaneously/periodically.  When it first started happening, I could go for hours with
no problems.  And then all of the sudden, it's "LOCAL ACCESS ONLY."   I'd even lose my Internet connection completely, but then it would come back momentarily.  Lately though, the problem got worse.  It would happen every 5-10 minutes.
What really drove me nuts originally is that I had set up a new wireless router: a TP-Link TL-WR941N.  Very nice and powerful.  It can reach up 3 stories in a multi-story home.  I have my computer up on the 3rd floor.  My Internet
connection was no problem... for MONTHS.  And then, all of the sudden, this "LOCAL ACCESS ONLY" problem started cropping up.  My network connection would change to this, then after a few moments, go back to "LOCAL AND INTERNET".
 I figured it was some kind of "momentary atmospheric problem".  But no.  It continued on, for days and days after it had started.  Why?  Why would this start happening when nothing else had changed?
Ah, but that's where I was amiss.  You see, Vista gets updated frequently by the powers that be at Microsoft.  And who knows what things they really do?  You don't get a full report.  You just keep getting "important security updates".
 Well, I suspect that at some point, they introduced some changes which affect the networking capability of Vista.  And so, since that point, you'll have periodic problems as I have.
Microsoft is so focused on Windows-7, that they really can't be bothered with Vista.  AND... I really wonder if they leave defects like this around to give incentive for people to upgrade to Windows-7.  I wouldn't put it past them.
Well, the main thing is that each person's situation is different.  Some people have 3rd party software that is tripping it up (like Norton or McAfee).  I think a lot of the problem depends upon the type of wireless router you're connected with
and the type of network (e.g. G vs. N).  So that's why some fixes proposed solve the problem while others do nothing.
If you try any settings changes, I strongly recommend that you do them one at a time.  Also, keep note of what you've applied.  It is important to be able to roll back those changes if need be.
So, this was the first friendly user tip that helped me:
Over the course of several days, I made only one change at a time, then waited to see if the failure occurred again.  I'm an IT networking professional so I based my decisions on my familiarity with network protocols, impact, risk, ease of
implementation and fallback positions.
These are the steps I took:
1.  Installed Teracopy, which takes over the file copying function of Windows.
http://www.codesector.com/teracopy.php
2. Disabled IPv6 (Control Panel -> Network Connections -> <your connection> -> Properties)
3.  Disabled Link Layer Topology Discovery Mapper and Responder (Control Panel -> Network Connections -> <your connection> -> Properties)
4. Set Power settings to high performance (Control Panel -> Power Options) and disabled the screensaver (Control Panel -> Personalization -> Screen Saver)
5. Reduced my Linksys router's MTU to 1480 (although I doubt this was part of the solution)
6. Enabled ECN with the following command "netsh interface tcp set global ecncapability=enabled" from command line (Start -> cmd)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb726965.aspx
Possibly step 6 is all you really need to do.  Please post if this works for you.
Well, I figured I'd give step #6 a shot.  Why not?  There are a few other command line settings recommended, but I decided to try it alone first:
          netsh interface tcp set global ecncapability=enabled
At first, this seemed to be the only thing I needed to do.  My "LOCAL ACCESS ONLY" problem seemed to stop happening, observed over a 20 minute period.  It happened again for a moment, but then Internet Access returned right away.  I thought
the problem was solved... But then "LOCAL ACCESS ONLY" came back and stayed.  I had to run these commands as well:
          netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled
          netsh interface tcp set global rss=disabled
This WORKED!  I seem to sustain my Internet connection for much longer periods.  LOCAL ACCESS ONLY does pop up sometimes, but it is very brief.  I think it's something to do with my router going into "sleep mode" on the
connection.  If I try to make a connection to a website, it comes back to life and I have Internet Access again.
LASTLY...
There is one other thing I want to mention, in case someone else reading this has the same problem.
One day after a severe storm that caused a power outage, I started getting "LOCAL ACCESS ONLY."  The wireless router was there and I'd connect to it, but no Internet.  I connected directly to it, hardwired, and STILL had the same problem.  I
rebooted the router, the cable modem, you name it.  Same problem.  Being directly connected to the cable modem was fine.  Did my router get fried from a power surge during the storm?  It seemed perfectly fine in all other respects.  I
eventually contacted the TP-LINK customer support.  I learned something new...  the problem was with the IP ADDRESS of the router conflicting with the cable modem.
By default, your wireless router will take IP address 192.168.1.1.  In some cases, this will be a problem if the cable modem is taking the same IP address
and is finicky about the address of the wireless router.  It was fine for almost 6 months... why did it become a problem all of the sudden?  Bizarre.  Suspicion was that the ISP changed some things (they remotely reprogram
the modems from time to time, you know).  The solution?  Give the wireless router a different address (e.g. 192.168.2.1).  It worked!  I was able to get Internet access after that.  Worked fine for several months,
too...  until I started getting that periodic "LOCAL ACCESS ONLY" again.  But the solution above seems to have addressed it.
Good luck to those having problems.  I sure wish Microsoft would be more dedicated to its customer base.  But thankfully we've got forums like this which bring people together to help solve each others problems.  :-)