Location Issue on my laptop with Windows 11

Thanks very much Rob. Do you know if there is a way to force W11 to revert to IPV4 addresses, and thus reset my W11 location based on the more accurate, if older, IPV4 addressing by my ISP?

My ISP, by the way, is Starlink. I suspected Starlink was the problem, but then again an iPhone and IPads at my current address and none of them gets the address wrong. But as you said, that may be because those devices have GPS location components that my laptop does not.

Nick

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 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.

Chrome browser by Google has always used their own location services that include the Wi-Fi and other location data that they've spent decades developing, which aren't available to Microsoft who instead typically use the less precise and often less accurate IP addressing scheme.

There's nothing ridiculous about this at all, it's simply the fact that Google had evolved their location services based on their Android phones that now typically require GPS devices, and also their Google Maps picture database and the comparison mapping done whenever you set up a new phone, since this allows them complete access to your personal information including your Wi-Fi SSID among other data that Google collects about everyone.

Did you read my previous post above and take the time to check whether the Microsoft Account - Activity page indicates that your device is now connecting using IPv6 addresses rather than the older IPv4? If so, it's likely that this is the change that's actually occurred that is causing the inaccurate location information, since these new IPv6 addresses often haven't been used before and thus may not be accurate in the registration information that's the responsibility of your Internet ISP to maintain.

This is a classic problem when using PC type equipment that rarely contain GPS devices, though as I stated above, it's generally been fixed long ago for the older IPv4 addresses, since those were typically assigned decades ago and since there's far less of them, it was a smaller problem to solve as well.

The entire reason that IPv6 was created was to massively expand the number of IP addresses from the relatively small, legacy IPv4 address space of roughly 4 billion, to 1,028 times as many with IPv6. However, that obviously also increases the problem of inaccurate locations exponentially as well, which is simply part of what Microsoft knew would have to be improved by both Regional Internet Registries (RIR's) and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) when they started to make the evolution to switch to the new addressing scheme on their own servers roughly a year or two ago.

Understanding IPv6 Geolocation: Challenges and Tools

Someone above asked about reverting to the old IPv4 addresses to solve this, but that's really not a good idea, since IPv6 will be the future. Instead, it's better if those of you having these issues first confirm that the addresses you're getting are either IPv4, for example something like 123.123.123.123, or instead the much longer IPv6 that looks like 3002:0bd6:0000:0000:0000:ee00:0033:6778.

If this recently changed, which you can easily see by looking back at previous login history on that same Microsoft Activity page, then go to either your ISP's Support forums or other offerings and look for others asking these same questions. If there aren't any, start a new thread there to ask whether they've properly set up the location information for the IPv6 addresses they assign to your routers or other devices within your home.

You'll also see in the article above that using things like a VPN or other similar routing issues can affect what the servers at the other end of a connection perceive as your location, so make sure you aren't using one of these before blaming the issue on anyone else including your ISP.

My assumption is that the recent Windows Updates that seem to have kicked this issue off for many PC users most likely included some improvements to the IPv6 support for the networking components in your device, resulting in your own device acquiring an IPv6 address that as long as all of the other devices (routers and switches) on the Internet between you and the Microsoft servers support IPv6 as well, will result in the initial attempt to connect using IPv6. Since most of these major Internet devices have supported IPv6 for over a decade, it's often only the client devices at home that needed an updated driver for this to work.

Rob

Thanks very much Rob. Do you know if there is a way to force W11 to revert to IPV4 addresses, and thus reset my W11 location based on the more accurate, if older, IPV4 addressing by my ISP?

My ISP, by the way, is Starlink. I suspected Starlink was the problem, but then again an iPhone and IPads at my current address and none of them gets the address wrong. But as you said, that may be because those devices have GPS location components that my laptop does not.

Nick

Nick,

Your situation with Starlink may be somewhat unique due to the satellite provided connection, but since the IP address provided should really be associated with your home location, I'd think they might have solved this by permanently assigning an address to your local device.

However, in your case that's what you'd want to bring to the Starlink Support as a question, since if they're dynamically assigning these addresses literally on-the-fly, then you'd either get an IP associated with the 15-mile zone I see in articles that your device is assigned to, or possibly even worse, one from a larger pool of addresses used in your general region or country.

I can't really believe they'd have bothered to make IPv6 available to solve the individual device routing issues it exists to resolve though, while still just assigning them randomly rather than to a specific location. So inaccurate location information related to your own specific assigned IPv6 address seems more likely in any case.

Rob

Yea, it is ridiculous. I've seen others post their location is also showing as Boydton, VA. Not a coincidence.

Also, I have IPv6 turned off and it still does this.

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.

Chrome browser by Google has always used their own location services that include the Wi-Fi and other location data that they've spent decades developing, which aren't available to Microsoft who instead typically use the less precise and often less accurate IP addressing scheme.

There's nothing ridiculous about this at all, it's simply the fact that Google had evolved their location services based on their Android phones that now typically require GPS devices, and also their Google Maps picture database and the comparison mapping done whenever you set up a new phone, since this allows them complete access to your personal information including your Wi-Fi SSID among other data that Google collects about everyone.

Did you read my previous post above and take the time to check whether the Microsoft Account - Activity page indicates that your device is now connecting using IPv6 addresses rather than the older IPv4? If so, it's likely that this is the change that's actually occurred that is causing the inaccurate location information, since these new IPv6 addresses often haven't been used before and thus may not be accurate in the registration information that's the responsibility of your Internet ISP to maintain.

This is a classic problem when using PC type equipment that rarely contain GPS devices, though as I stated above, it's generally been fixed long ago for the older IPv4 addresses, since those were typically assigned decades ago and since there's far less of them, it was a smaller problem to solve as well.

The entire reason that IPv6 was created was to massively expand the number of IP addresses from the relatively small, legacy IPv4 address space of roughly 4 billion, to 1,028 times as many with IPv6. However, that obviously also increases the problem of inaccurate locations exponentially as well, which is simply part of what Microsoft knew would have to be improved by both Regional Internet Registries (RIR's) and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) when they started to make the evolution to switch to the new addressing scheme on their own servers roughly a year or two ago.

Understanding IPv6 Geolocation: Challenges and Tools

Someone above asked about reverting to the old IPv4 addresses to solve this, but that's really not a good idea, since IPv6 will be the future. Instead, it's better if those of you having these issues first confirm that the addresses you're getting are either IPv4, for example something like 123.123.123.123, or instead the much longer IPv6 that looks like 3002:0bd6:0000:0000:0000:ee00:0033:6778.

If this recently changed, which you can easily see by looking back at previous login history on that same Microsoft Activity page, then go to either your ISP's Support forums or other offerings and look for others asking these same questions. If there aren't any, start a new thread there to ask whether they've properly set up the location information for the IPv6 addresses they assign to your routers or other devices within your home.

You'll also see in the article above that using things like a VPN or other similar routing issues can affect what the servers at the other end of a connection perceive as your location, so make sure you aren't using one of these before blaming the issue on anyone else including your ISP.

My assumption is that the recent Windows Updates that seem to have kicked this issue off for many PC users most likely included some improvements to the IPv6 support for the networking components in your device, resulting in your own device acquiring an IPv6 address that as long as all of the other devices (routers and switches) on the Internet between you and the Microsoft servers support IPv6 as well, will result in the initial attempt to connect using IPv6. Since most of these major Internet devices have supported IPv6 for over a decade, it's often only the client devices at home that needed an updated driver for this to work.

Rob