Location Issue on my laptop with Windows 11

Interesting Maggiekev,

Your description provides another complication which may indicate why there haven't been literally hundreds of these complaints, since you're apparently logging into both your Microsoft and Google account t once, which most like me don't even use on our PC

However, bentokage who mentioned the Default location settings in their thread above, had also opened a separate thread in these forums where they started complaining of exactly the same sort of ping-pong sharing of the Boydton, VA site in their case on both their phones and other devices, so your description of this interaction between logged in accounts is likely explaining their symptoms as well.

Since my own Microsoft only account operation doesn't use a Google account except on my phone, I never saw this interaction back to the phone, but I can't be certain it had nothing to do with my simpler problems with Boydton itself, since the Google account does actually exist.

However, even though I've seen no additional Windows update to this point, the changes I'd already made including the Default location one I mentioned here last seem to have stabilized my own operation.

So, it's probably only in more extreme cases like yours when using both Microsoft and Google accounts together for search and similar purposes that this additional work may need to be done to resolve the side effects having both accounts swapping location information in the background can cause.

Just as an FYI, most if not all of those items in your list of changes are the more classic ones I'd seen in other older threads during my research, so they really just appear to be needed to remove the potential corruption of either Maps app, location history data or some autoconfiguration items that might create added confusion as well.

Rob

So... I'm back. I've been posting to two different boards regarding this topic. Recap: I have a Lenovo Tablet that had this location discrepancy, worked w/three different MS Support folks, tried MANY recommended solutions. Nothing worked. I'd use a different time server and/or a coincidental windows update worked. I'm no longer in Olathe, KS and back in Sacramento, CA and can go back to setting the time zone automatically and the weather widget validates this.

Recent posts I've made now tell all that my Windows 11 desktop decided to make a change after an update and put me in again in Olathe, KS. Please understand, when you're logged in to the same MS account (and Google account) to do searches, etc. this location issue is complicating basic tasks. Now Google is providing me w/searches for Olathe, KS or asking me which location I want to use.

TODAY: The desktop wanted to install another update (2024-05 Cumulative Update Preview...W11 23H2 KB5037853). When completed and PC restarted, I'm now in Sandy Springs, GA!! A new Google search had me checking out the following:

Windows 11 Maps Shows Wrong Location: Fixed - NEXTOFWINDOWS.COM

I'd make "some" of the changes as others were already in place and I didn't feel it was necessary to uninstall/reinstall maps.

1. I disabled the Proxy Auto-Detect.
2. I did a repair / reset on the Map app.
3. Location history has been deleted a thousand times.
4. I did go into Services and turned Geolocation to "Automatic"

I stopped there, did another 'restart' and the weather widget now had my correct location! I turned Time Zone back to automatic and I'm still good?? But... now my tablet wants to install the same update. What will the outcome be...?

bentokage,

Great catch! I hadn't thought to look at the Default location because I'd set mine to the city I'm located near years ago when I had also changed all of the location and other settings to avoid being tracked.

However, this had also been overridden for my own Windows 10 configuration to display the downtown Boydton, VA location that the data center located near that small town is set to display.

That's the missing item that made no sense to me, so it's really that same change that's affecting all of us who display that address, since the Default location is the fallback that's always displayed when Windows can't otherwise provide a more accurate location via any of the other methods you've chosen to allow.

So, it's easy to see why someone could think this is either a bug or something that Microsoft broke, since in effect they unilaterally made the decision to set this Default location item to the same data center address as the Microsoft Secure Network selections will display, most likely because they're trying to protect you from being tracked if you haven't chosen to set this to something specific yourself.

FYI, when I looked at this particular setting based on your post, I immediately tried clicking hat same 'Show my location' dot in the center of the navigation bar on the map that appears, which since Allow apps to access your location was still turned on, was accurate to within a few houses. Once I returned that to 'Off' as it has been for years, clicking the dot again displayed We're not allowed to find you and offered to turn Location settings back on again.

So exactly as you've stated, you can set this Default by entering one manually with either a specific address, zip code such as a local town or city, or clicking Choose location to select it on the map instead, placing it as close or far from your true location as you prefer anyone to be able to determine.

So, for JB-D-M, that's the item that changed that you perceived as a bug, while in truth it's just a default setting change that Microsoft made that though it's likely documented somewhere, it's no doubt in such an obscure location that finding it would be as difficult as discovering it was for us. While bentokage made a correct decision to look at the Default location setting and found it had been altered because he didn't make the same erroneous assumption I did that they'd left it alone as I'd set it previously.

Rob

I have this same issue and it's super annoying. Edge, and the Maps app, in Windows 11, locates me in Boydton , VA, even though I'm in the Dallas, TX area. Chrome, however, does NOT have this issue, on the same system. Utterly ridiculous.

I had this exact same issue happen to me (and multiple other people have as well), all within the last two weeks. Doesn't seem to have anything to do with the ISP or any specific browsers. I think Windows location services are entirely failing for you and me, and the computer's default seems to be set to Boydton, since that's where the data center is.

I was able to band-aid the problem by going to Windows Settings -> Privacy & security -> Location, and changing the "Default location" setting via the "Set default" button.

This box should show up in the top-left corner with the Boydton address (I blocked out my own address which this is now set to). Click "Change" and enter your address, or alternatively you can click the "Choose location" thing under it and you can pick the exact spot you want the computer to think you are.

This allowed for everything I use to default to my address instead of defaulting to Boydton, hence "fixing" the issue since my PC isn't moving anywhere. This doesn't actually fix the issue with the location services that happened to people though, so if you bring your PC/laptop somewhere else and the issue still happens, you would have to do this again to match wherever you are.

Let me know if this doesn't work, since that would mean that the same issue appeared for multiple people at once but the band-aid solution doesn't work for every instance of it.

My experience is the opposite of yours. Again I’m not using any of edge’s secure networking features, the edge vpn is not on, I’m not blocking location information from any of the sites and it still thinks I’m in Boydton, VA.

JB-D-M,

Can't say what your precise issue is then, since the Boydton, VA address detection clearly means that your traffic is exiting the Microsoft network from that facility, or at least appears to the particular destination website you're using to test as if that's where the traffic is being sourced.

Using that knowledge as an input, you need to try and determine what particular configuration on that specific PC might reroute your outbound traffic into the same sort of tunnel that Microsoft uses for those services. Maybe as I think about it some more, I'll come up with a possible reason for this odd behavior, but at present it simply makes no sense to me at all, since the Secure Network services are the only reason I personally know of that Windows itself routes your network traffic through their servers.

Since we're not sitting in front of your device it's not possible for us to review your settings and I'm really not interested in playing 20(,000) questions. You simply may have one of the other older problems that's been known to cause similar issues in the past, but the particular symptom seems to point directly at this relatively new issue for reasons I've already explained.

I will state that I had to make sure that my Site permission, location settings in the Edge browser weren't blocked in order to ensure the current info was being picked up by the testing websites, but typically these were indicating this failure rather than showing either Microsoft datacenter address, while the address info only became more accurate in my case as I removed any of the Cookie or other location related blocking, or disabled the Secure Network features in Edge or Windows.

< EDIT > Maybe try resetting your browser and/or deleting any history including Cookies if you haven't already done that, though I'm guessing you may have and that's really just grasping at straws, since it sounds like the browser settings aren't working properly if this won't appear to change for you. Corruption of certain settings or even the apps like Maps themselves was often part of the troubleshooting recommended for location problems in the past.

Rob