I have Windows Server 2008 with two NICs. First one is connected to internet and has static IP configuration. There is no issue with this NIC. Second one is connected directly to backend network (192.168.x.0/24) and has static IP configuration but no default gateway. If there is no default gateway set on second NIC network is set to public and has "Unidentified network" sign in Network Sharing Center. If I fill default gateway on this NIC with any IP, network will become known and I can switch it to private network. This configuration with two default gateways is imho wrong, but I didn't found another way how to set backend network as a private network.

I makes sense to have different default gateways on each segment. The purpose of a default gateway is to define the route a message should take if it can't find the address on the current network segment. If the address can't be found on the current segment, the message is passed to default gateway and (hopefully) will be resolved somewhere on the other side of the gateway. tgc

Sorry, but I don't agree with you. Two default gateways on one system can make sense just for redundancy. If I have two NICs connected to direrent purpose networks (internet and backend) then second gateway makes no sense. First packets are being sent to local networks, which are defined by IP address and network mask on eatch NIC, then they are send to default gateway with lower cost. Second gateway will be never used. There is a warring message in Windows Server 2008 if you configure more that one default gateway: Code Snippet ---------------------------Microsoft TCP/IP---------------------------Warning - Multiple default gateways are intended to provide redundancy to a single network (such as an intranet or the Internet). They will not function properly when the gateways are on two separate, disjoint networks (such as one on your intranet and one on the Internet). Do you want to save this configuration?---------------------------Yes No --------------------------- I remember similar warnings from Windows Server 2003, so it's not new.

Setting multiple gateways on one interface can give you redundancy, but it is very limited. It depends on dead gateway detection, and it is a one shot wonder. It will never switch back without intervention. Setting a gateway on each NIC when you have multiple NICs is a different matter and is not a good idea. In fact it can causeyou grief if you are using it as a router (hence the warning), For instance a RRAS/NAT router may fail to work at all if a default gateway is set on the private NIC. Nothing is ever transferred to the public network from the LAN.

HEllo i dont know what to do also ..please i have a vista home premium on compaq presario and it has been working well with the LAN and wireless but 2 days ago..it has been on unidentfied network..pls how do i solve that.My router is from the university information centre ..does that has anything to do with it. cant connect the web again...pls help

So, how did you solved this issue.

Pls explain properly bza i have face this type of problemwhen open the gpedit.msc>then explain the next processi am waiting for your revertregard neeraj+919936979821

got the same problem with w7 ultimate x64. the above solution does not work. any ideas?-flow

You will need to give more details about what you actually did and what is happening. This thread has covered a lot of ground. "Same problem" as what? "does not work" is not a satisfactory description. If you have changed the security settings as Hikmat described, the unidentified network will not be classified as public. If it is, I suspect that you have not followed the directions correctly. Bill

Hello I have a similar issue, I have a Windows server 2008 R2 with two nics, first nic is on a domain network and the server finds this network connection properly, however my second nic is on a local lan with no internet connection, this LAN is used for transporting backup traffic to a cellserver, the server recognizes this network as "Unidentified" and no traffic is allowed. I now that I shouldnt use 2 gateways but when I write in the second GW it gets recognized as a domain network and traffic is allowed, And isnt the different profiles only different settings for the firewall? I disable the firewall and I still have the same problem. How can I "force" the card to get recognized without setting a second GW? Ive read some forums about NdisDeviceType and editing the registry, but there must be a simplier way to get it done or am I wrong? Especially on servers in big environment where it is common with a second lan for distributing certain traffic. Br Chris

The fact that is unidentified will not prevent traffic from being sent over it. What will stop traffic is if it is set to Public. The normal setting is for unidentified networks to be public. This is to prevent your machine from receiving packets from an untrusted location. This is a security setting which can be changed. You can set it so that unidentified networks are private if you trust the network.Bill

Hello Bill, thanks for your reply, I have managed to set the unidentified network as Private, but I still experience the same problem. I have tried with adding static routes but no, there is still no traffic, only way is to set a second default GW and that is BAD. I know there is no network errors because the server used to be a windows 2003 with same network configuration and it works. Br Christian

If the machines on this network are in the same IP subnet as the NIC on this server, static routes and default gateways are not required and will not do anything for you. Machines in the same IP subnet communicate directly using hardware addressing. They do not use routing. Problems like this are usually name resolution problems. If the name resolves to a particular IP address, then that is the IP which will be used. Can you communicate with machines on your second network using IP addresses?Bill

Bill,I have read the thread above and would like to inquire about a somewhat similar issue I am dealing with:1. 4 - Windows 2003 servers each connected to its own router setup on private LAN with default gateways of 192.168.0.1x1 and 192.168.1.1x3. All routers are set on a static public IP for internet connection. All servers uses NIC1 to connect to router. All servers are for varying services, ie: web, ftp, sql, smtp.2. I am now trying to use NIC2 of each server to connect to a separate router not connected to the internet set on DHCP with default gateway of 192.168.10.1. The purpose is to connect a LAN hard drive on the router for each server to use as a backup device.3. Each server connected and was assigned an IP. I was able to connect and backup, and the internet worked fine on all 4 servers. It worked for about 2 days, then two of the servers lost internet connection, one from each DG.Was wondering if this is the correct way to go about this? I got the similar message as others did when I first configured this: Code Snippet ---------------------------Microsoft TCP/IP---------------------------Warning - Multiple default gateways are intended to provide redundancy to a single network (such as an intranet or the Internet). They will not function properly when the gateways are on two separate, disjoint networks (such as one on your intranet and one on the Internet). Do you want to save this configuration?---------------------------Yes No --------------------------- but continued for my purpose. Can you please enlighten me as the correct way to go about this. Should I set all my 4 routers to use the same default gateway of 192.168.1.1 and similarly to the backup router to be used at NIC2?I appreciate any immediate replies.Octavious

What the warning message is telling you is that setting multiple gateways is a way to let a machine switch to another gateway if one fails. This is not very reliable, and not really effective because it will not switch back! Something like this may have disabled the normal gateways that you use. You should not configure more than one default gateway on a machine. If you want this setup to work, leave the default gateway on the 192.168.10 NICs blank. Machines do not need a default gteway to communicate with other machines in the same IP subnet. It is only required to communicate with machines in a different IP subnet (which requires IP routing). Not having a default gateway configured will give you the "unidentified network" message but it should work. The main problem with multihoming servers like that is name resolution. Each server now has two IP addresses associated with its name. The traffic will only use a particular network if the name resolves to the IP address in that network. This should not be a problem for you if the servers initiate the connection to the the hard drive, because that device is not multihomed. If its name always resolves to 192.168.10.1 the servers will send traffic for it from their 192.168.10 interfaces. I would leave the default gateway settings on the 192.168.0 and 192.168.1 NICs as they are if this worked successfully in the past. You cannot use a 192.168.0 or 192.168.1 address for the gateway setting on the 192.168.10 NICs. A default gateway must be in the same IP subnet as the NIC because it has to be reachable directly (ie by "on the wire" hardware addressing).Bill

Hi I had the same problem with unidentified network on Windows 2008 R2 Hyper-V, I had configured 2 NICs with IP addresses but then realised I did not need to add 2nd IP address as this was going to be Virtual Network in Hyper-V. I removed IP settings on 2nd NIC but network showed unidentified. Went to registry and deleted all entries under [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces], then reconfigured my primary NIC again. Bob

Hi, I ran into this issue also on a Server 2008 R2 Physical Server (Running Remote Desktop Services Server). Ran though all above steps with no fix. Resolution was uninstalling and reinstalling the NIC Adapters via device Manager, after re inputting the static IP settings it now shows connected to the domain name. ... Do not know however what may have caused this issue in the first place. - Mark

I have two windows 2008 R2 Servers, each has two nic (NIC 1 is Public 192.168.x.x) NIC 2 is Private (10.x.x.x). Nic 1 is OK. But NIC2 display with two icons (icon1 is private, icon2 is unidenitified). Is there any way to remove the icon 2?

hey guys. i have a similar issue. Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1. I know it worked before. It was probably one of the updates that cause the issue. Issue is: - 2 NICs (x.x.182.10, x.x.182.68) - 2 IPs on different subnets (.224, .240) - 2 different gateways (.x.x.182.1, x.x.182.65) First NIC works. 2nd NIC doesnt. Maybe I havent read up enough yet. I get the same warning about multiple gateways and such. The same config worked on 2003 R2 and even before SP1. Just it popped up recently.

simple, unless you are a windows 7 box on an unix network. i've had endless problems with tw windows 7 machines runing library software on a mixed OS X served open directory network. for a start, the window 7 machines refuse point blank to integrate, but that is another story. as they need fixed ip addresses, we did have them programmed into the win7 boxes. too many times they stopped talking to each other as they decided the network was unidentified. the fix was to set up the os x dhcp server to provide a reserved lease to each windows 7 box. the win7 machines are now happy that the network is no longer unidentified. since the actual netwrok settings on the win7 machines are _identical_, apart from now being supplied by DHCP instead of being hard coded, this implies microsfot is up to nonsense with its detection routines. we need to be able to turn this feature OFF. incidentally, we decided not to make a large purchase of win7 boxes dues to continuing issues with cross-platform compatibility and rubbish like this. bye, microsoft.

Hello Lads! i have installed Windows 2008 R2 in a home testing lab, there is only one network card in a PC plug in the hub, i gave a manual / static IP 192.168.1.2 SM 255.255.255.0 No Default Getway and on DNS. my network connection is showing me Unidentified Network! i can ping my IP 192.168.1.2 and 127.0.0.1 to fix Unidentified Network problem i did the following steps as our previous email in this form: 1. Start --> run --> MMC --> press enter 2. In MMC console , from menu file select Add/Remove Snap-in 3. Select Group Policy Object editor --> Press Add --> select Local computer --> press OK -->press OK 4. Open Computer configration -->Windows Settings -->Security Settings -->select Network list manger policies on the right Side you will see options for : double click -->Unidentified netwroks then you can select the option to consider the Unidentified netwroks as private and if user can change the location. after changing my Unidentified network as Private network i can still see sign of yellow exclamation ! on my network in task bar right bottom. i am not sure having this Unidentified network can i install DNS on this machine ? i have already disabled my Windows 2008 firewalls but no positive results :( i will appreciate for your help please! Thanks Ali Ali

Holy moley! For Uamk2005 - of all the zillions of GUIDS, how did you come up with the one you mentioned above? And for any Microsoft OS engineer who might stumble across this thread - of all the dumb engineering decisions I've seen over the years, this one seems like a doozy. First of all - even if I have a multihomed server, by **DEFINITION** I will only have one default gateway. That's why it's the **DEFAULT** gateway. It's the routing path of last resort, where I go if I don't have any other routes assigned. So then, you put in a ton of code that doesn't allow anyone to interact with a **SERVER** across a NIC without a default gateway assigned - what's up with that???? Wouldn't you think that a NIC without a default gateway assigned would be used mostly for internal, private purposes??? So forcing users to jump through tons of unnatural hoops so they can interact with their **SERVER** over this NIC is just plain dumb. Sorry to be so blunt, but this bone-headed design cost me 2 days of labor so far, and disconnected at least 100 students and dozens of teachers from their school server. And it also cost me several days of lost sleep, so now I am very cranky. - Greg ScottGreg Scott

Hi Arshad - You need to assign a default gateway to those XP clients. Your server is essentially acting as the router between your XP clients and the rest of the world - right? But right now, your clients don't know that. That's what the default gateway does. When a computer needs to visit somewhere and it doesn't know the path, it travels via its default gateway. Your clients are all using an IP Address of 10.0.0.n, right? Try giving one client a default gateway of 10.0.0.1 and see how that works. If it works well, then repeat for your other clients. You may also need to configure your server as a router if it's not already. Do this with the RRAS MMC applet. Note that using a Windows server as an Internet router is controversial. - Greg ScottGreg Scott

we are so far off topic. this post was to do with win7 and unidentified networks. as far as i'm aware, there is still no fix, which is why we bought macs instead. -flow

I had a similar problem with this, I had a server with two NIC cards.... one was to a network that was safe, the other nic to somewhere of a blackhole. Anyway, the first NIC had a "default gateway", all the settings looked fine but was coming up as unidentified network. To resolve this I had to set another gateway... rather dramatically the connection moved to the correct network profile. Finally I had to clean up the machines. What worries me is that this occured when the we had a switch failure! What can I do when so I would not have to do this in the event of another switch failure!

Just to be clear on the issue that this answered... ;-) Server 2008R2 Two NICS, Two Separate IP Networks Public Network has Default Gateway - Routed just fine Private Network did not route correctly until second DNS Zone was configured and IPv4 properties were set as above on both adapters. THANK YOU MARTYNK!