I've posted similar to this on earlier forums but this is the summary of what has been going on all in one post. I'm sure most of you have already heard how crappy Vista's wireless utility has been. Hopefully somebody has some solution. Okay... here goes... I'm an IT Tech for a housing department for a state university. One section of the apartments was not built for a hard wire connection so a wireless "solution" was implemented. We have a wireless bridge that streches across the buildings into several Cisco 1231 APs. Here is where the fun begins. Any student that uses Windows XP, OS X, or any OS other than Vista can receive DHCP no problem. When a student uses a Vista based OS (Basic to Ultimate) I will temporarily get DHCP and then is lost within a few minutes or at a reboot and the connections drops to "Local Only" Access. Keep in mind later on that they will get an IP address yet still have a "Local Only" connection. At first I went through and did the basic ipconfig and netsh commands to disable autotuning and disabling IPV6. No Luck. I went through and disabled security features in the Firewall. I went into the APs and updated the software to the Latest IOS version and changed the ecryption from WEP (26 Hex) to WPA-Personal TKIP. No luck. I then manaully set the IP Address, Subnetmask, and DNS Servers to what corresponded to the network. I connected and never went into "Local Only" at all. I reset it to obtain IP automatically and all I got was "Local Only" Access. This has been going on for about a month.... Today, I was investigating seeing if I could ping anything within the Local Network. Not suprised, I was not able to ping the local gateway in "Local Only". I tried to ping another vista laptop on the same network connected through a hardwire connection and it all timed out. Here's the interesting part. I then took the hardwire Vista Laptop and Pinged the local only wireless laptop... I got responses (less than 1ms) onto the wired laptop. Since that happend I am so baffeled I called Microsoft and filed a "complaint" and that they would investigate this. I'm not having Microsoft charge me $245 for their flaw in the OS and have some tech say "yeah you got a problem" and end the conversation there. I've run all "hot fixes" changed registry keys, change battery performance levels and no luck. The only thing that works is a static IP address but these are students that take their laptops to class and wouldn't be able to connect to the University's wireless and wouldn't know how to re-insert a static IP address. Anybody got any insight?

Hey wgmann03, This seems to be a common problem and no one seemsto be able to come up with any satisfactory solution. I've even tried most of the "relevant" optional official patches, all worthless. However - did you try opening the Network and sharing center and clicking onto the (inactive) connection between the LAN (or whatever connection)and Internet in the picture? The click makes Vista diagnose the trouble and (ultimately) offers you to reset the adapter. This usually helps me with the wired connection problems. I know you said you've tried ipconfig, but for some reason this "diagnostics" way works, while the manual hard way doesn't. Anyway, the whole networking in Vista is extremely messed up. I am experiencing a lot of other problems too and it makes me really tired... Rubco

Thanks for the advice!For now, our problem seems to be fixed. We went into our wireless bridges and all the APs and updated the latest software and IOS for the Cisco 1231 APs and the Cisco 1410 Bridges. The dates on the software was updated this year so I assume changes were made to accommodate Vista. Now the hang time in acquiring an IP address and DHCP is all gone. We successfully had 15 clients connected for 9-10 hours with out any drops. I do know that some students mentioned that they had a very similar problem with their personal APs back at their house.My best suggestion for people out there: If you have a router/AP that is Pre-Vista, search your manufacturer's website for new firmware and look for anything that was posted Post-Vista (any date after Jan. 2007). *IMPORTANT*- If you use the incorrect firmware your router will cease to function. Or, if you don't want to deal with upgrading firmware best bet is to go out to your local electronic store and buy one that has the "Vista Certified" label. Hopes this helps!