How to beat Windows networking issues

While I was on the road this week, I had a terribly frustrating time trying to tether connect my netbook to my phone.   Windows 8.1 was working perfectly normal except that it was unable to connect to the WiFi network aired by my phone.   Even finding the hotspot required patience.    Other WiFi hotspots would appear, but not my phone, when it did appear the connection would fail with a simple message ‘Could not connect to network’.   Windows system logs were not helpful.

I had tried forgetting the hotspot to reconfigure it, I even tried re configuring the mobile WiFi hotspot on my phone.   There was nothing I could do.

Fortunately I found my sons Ubuntu netbook in the car, I booted it up and was able to get online to search for an answer.    I tried to phrase the question to Google in a way that it would get past the easy stuff and get me to the results I was looking for.  Microsoft popped up a promising lead, “Troubleshooting tips for connecting to networks”.  A quick read through found it was the very basic stuff, with no links to more advanced topics.

A techy’s insider tip, search technet.microsoft.com instead, content of technet is kept from general searches as it is more advanced and has a potential to break systems.    Once I updated the Google search to include “site:technet.microsoft.com”.  Bam! I found what I was looking for.

The fix I found was new to me and I wanted to contribute it to the collective memory as it may help future me and others if they have network issues with their windows computers.

Windows 8.1 Troubleshooting: Fix WiFi Connectivity Issues – plus more than just wifi

Reset TCP/IP Stack

Misconfigured TCP/IP settings might probably cause the issue of irresponsive Wi-Fi connection. It can easily be reset or Auto tuned through the Microsoft Windows very own Net Shell utility (netsh.exe). Have a look at the procedures below for the practical implication of this utility.

  • Click Search icon on the Charms bar and type Command Prompt in the search box
  • Right click the search result and choose to Run as administrator
  • Type the command NETSH INT IP RESET C:\RESTLOG.TXT and press Enter key

 

 

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