Windows 7 Loses Internet Connection but not Network Connection.

Can I just say that my response wasn't a dig at anyone here, especially not the person I quoted.  If I gave that impression then I apologise.  Jeff, you are clearly bending over backwards to help people and that is laudable.  My argument is not that you shouldn't do it, I simply don't believe you should NEED to do it.

Yes, I'm angry.  I spent, what is for me, an awful lot of money buying a product which I believe should work.  I'm actually starting to see, for the first time ever, the benefits of piracy.  I was offered a "hooky" copy of W7 by a colleague and I refused it.  When I think I could have had the problems I've had for free instead of paying as much as I have for them I feel VERY angry.

Microsoft's response to this and the many other threads has been nothing short of disgraceful.  Their (lack of) presence and participation in these threads is laughable.  We, as paying customers, deserve better.

I'm sorry if I have derailed the thread, as a new (old) Vista user I'll shut up and leave you guys to it.

Update, etc.:

>>How on earth can it be unfair to point the finger at a consumer product which is clearly being sold before it has been tested?  Would you be happy to do this with the next car you buy?

It is not clear that Windows 7 is being sold before it's been tested. Also.. I am a non-driver and have never owned a car.

>>Why should anyone on these forums (or anywhere else) have to jump through hoops to get a product we have bought and paid for working to specification?

We absolutely should not. However, some basic troubleshooting to determine where to point the finger is definitely in order. As of yet, I don't think any of our problems have been proven to be the fault of the underlying OS. Have they?

>>How can it possibly be sensible for MS to offer as advice that you should try to run your PC for a while without AV or firewall protection?  I bought Norton 2010 because it's W7 certified.  Are MS saying now that perhaps it's not actually as certified as it should be?  Has anything else from the "certified software" been tested or are problems likely with that in the future?

It is arguably reasonable when troubleshooting with the manufacturer to remove any additions that are not the manufacturer's. I have no doubt that the Norton 2010 package you've acquired has been extensively tested with Windows 7. I wouldn't be at all surprised, however, to find that there may be interactions between it and other applications that a) were not tested at all; and b) might manifest themselves as issues that appear to originate from the base operating system rather than either of those applications.

I can make software malfunction under Windows XP, and that's a far more mature OS with, one would think, far more mature apps.

>>Like other posters, I have other PCs on my network.  My wife's laptop (Vista) is perfectly capable of connecting to the internet when my PC (W7 64 bit) has disconnected.  My son's PC (XP Pro) is exactly the same - no problems at all.  The problem is in Windows 7, not my ISP, not my router and not in any of the cables!

This was/is my situation exactly, and I am still trying to pin down whether it's an application, installation, configuration or OS issue. I would just say that the problem is with your Windows 7 machine, but has not be proven to be with Windows 7 itself. Again, this is what I've been troubleshooting. I had hopes that if I had identified an issue with Windows 7, and had done so with Microsoft's assistance, they would have been quick to fix it and it would have eliminated the issue for all of those, here and elsewhere, who have reported the same issue. I am sorry to have let everyone down, but I am unable at this time to point my finger at anything.

>>As I said earlier in the thread, the solution I found (and it works perfectly) is to bin W7 and go back to Vista.  When (if) I see any concerted effort from MS to even try to address the points in this (and the myriad of other) threads I'll consider going back to W7.  Until then, MS can shove it.  All they've really done with this issue is given the MS haters a lot of ammunition.

Certainly, you've found a pretty quick way around the problem. However, you've not proven your theory that it's an underlying OS problem. Let me ask you, if you had the same problem in a newly built XP or Vista PC, how would you proceed? Would you proceed differently solely because those operating systems are more mature?

Do you agree that the various reports of symptoms here and elsewhere may represent a number of possibly different causes?

Kahonen, you appear to be very angry at Microsoft, and I do understand your anger. I think Microsoft should have an army of responders ready to respond to threads like these, to help debug and to prove, if you will, the readiness of their newest release. They appear to me to be rather unresponsive in the scheme of things, however, and that's disappointing.

Now the update:

All formerly disabled services and auto-start apps are again enabled and there appears to be no more issue. This could indicate that there was an installation problem with one or more of the apps I installed at the time the machine was built (or shortly thereafter) or that there was an issue with the order of installation, or that there was some other unknown issue. In any case, my connectivity issue ceased eleven days ago, as I write this.

The Microsoft engineer with whom I have been working calls me for an update each day. I expect to be able to close the case by the end of the week. If there is anything else to report by that time, I will do so.

As easy as it is to point the finger at a new operating system release it's perhaps not "fair" to do so. There are a myriad of drivers and services, from many sources, running on our machines, that interact with the base operating system. It's likely that not all of this code is as mature and well tested as it should be.

How on earth can it be unfair to point the finger at a consumer product which is clearly being sold before it has been tested?  Would you be happy to do this with the next car you buy?

Why should anyone on these forums (or anywhere else) have to jump through hoops to get a product we have bought and paid for working to specification?

For me, I am at the point where all my necessary non-Microsoft services have been re-enabled, as have all my auto-start apps. I've also reinstalled my AV software (but not my anti-spyware software). Notably still disabled are the System Control service and any applications and utilities provided by my motherboard maker.

Using this process, I have also identified the source of suspected but unproven hangs of 20-30 seconds in Firefox and Mail. These hangs, present from the day the system was built, ceased when antivirus software was removed from the system and returned once AV was re-installed.

How can it possibly be sensible for MS to offer as advice that you should try to run your PC for a while without AV or firewall protection?  I bought Norton 2010 because it's W7 certified.  Are MS saying now that perhaps it's not actually as certified as it should be?  Has anything else from the "certified software" been tested or are problems likely with that in the future?

Like other posters, I have other PCs on my network.  My wife's laptop (Vista) is perfectly capable of connecting to the internet when my PC (W7 64 bit) has disconnected.  My son's PC (XP Pro) is exactly the same - no problems at all.  The problem is in Windows 7, not my ISP, not my router and not in any of the cables!

As I said earlier in the thread, the solution I found (and it works perfectly) is to bin W7 and go back to Vista.  When (if) I see any concerted effort from MS to even try to address the points in this (and the myriad of other) threads I'll consider going back to W7.  Until then, MS can shove it.  All they've really done with this issue is given the MS haters a lot of ammunition.