Fixing wireless "hidden network" problem on Windows 7

Anonymous
2009-12-02T05:09:46+00:00

I've read a post by a previous user who seemed to be having a similar problem as me, but the response he received didn't help solve the problem and I suspect this to be a genuine bug in Windows 7, but that remains to be seen.

http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7network/thread/0d9e680f-8025-4863-9242-f990c64ea8bd <- a link to the aforementioned thread.

Connecting to  my wireless network (which has been online for years and served dozens of machines no problem), yesterday I attempted to connect running Windows 7 and received the following error message in my troubleshooting dialog: "Windows can't connect to the hidden network."

More specifically: "This network is marked as a "hidden" network and is either not in range of this computer or the wireless settings saved on this computer do not match the settings of the network."

My network is not hidden, SSID broadcasting is on, I am using a valid key and the network has full strength from my wireless connection utility. Does anyone know how to fix this problem or why it seems to be only happening on Windows 7, and only reporting that the problem is that the network is hidden?

Thanks

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Internet and connectivity

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Anonymous
2009-12-09T11:29:14+00:00

Do you use WEP encryption?

Maybe I will answer to your question using google results. When you get to the last page of results for

Do you see some correlation? Majority of results include information about WEP. Some of topics were never answered. Those one were the solution was found include suggestion about changing WEP encryption. 

Try to set another security type in your router's settings and use it in your network setting under Windows 7. I'm using security type: WPA2, and encryption type: AES and everything works fine.

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  1. Anonymous
    2012-05-16T01:36:55+00:00

    Check the the signal frequency it may be a mismatch between 20Mhz vs. 20/40 MHz.

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  2. Anonymous
    2012-04-21T16:31:35+00:00

    i am having this same problem, i created an other network name to access the web but that did not solve all my problems... I need to get back to my old network.... i have a D link  N 300+.... i have tried many of the sugestions on here with no results ??? i also dont know much about computers so that does not help either .. LOL  thanks Jody

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  3. Anonymous
    2012-04-09T18:19:17+00:00

    ok i was having this same problem and this is how i went about fixing it. I went to the wireless signal i was trying to connect to, right-clicked it and went to properties. My security type was "shared" with WEP as  the Encryption type. I changed "shared" to "No  Authentication (Open)" with WEP as the Encryption still and that fixed my problem! hopefully this can help some people who were having a similar issue! It took me 2 hours just to figure it out!

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  4. Anonymous
    2012-02-08T21:13:39+00:00

    I have had this problem recently.  I don't recall making any changes in settings.  Mione is an

    open network. Does that make any difference?  BTW. OS is Win 7.

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