Invalid IP Address 169.254.x.x

EventID 1001 DHCP Your computer was not assigned an address from the network

Recently, I was helping a client with Windows 7 who was unable to connect to network one since it has been working fine for years. When he went to Network and Sharing Center, he had the following listed: Above mentioned are mostly the issues which could be fixed by following few steps.

I tried the following steps and most cases these steps worked.

 – Change Ethernet cable

– Change wall port/Switch port o verify the connection status

– ipconfig /all got us a 169.254.x.x ip address and no default gateway

-ipconfig /release

-ipconfig /flushdns

-ipconfig /renew

– Ping 127.0.0.1 works
– netsh winsock reset appeared successful (restart)
– netsh int ip reset resetlog.txt appeared successful(restart)

– Un-install NIC and installed latest driver /restart
– Try “diagnose and repair” by right clicking Network Connection (Local Area Connection or Wi-Fi Card)
– Ensure Firewall is off/Disabled

– IF you are running Anti Virus, disable it for short period of time and see if network comes backup

– Disabled Malware Byte to verify if it could be cause
– tried running a winsock fix utility
– tried reinstalling IPv4 on local area connection
– tried booting in safe mode with networking
– tried manually assigning the ip addresses

Network Card won’t take the IP address and it shows un-Identified Network. 

Instead of his normal network connection, it said Unidentified Network and No Internet Access and sure enough, he could not connect to the Internet! The same thing showed up in the taskbar icon for network connections:

Method 1 – Disable McAfee Network Agent

One common culprit has been the McAfee Network Agent service. You can disable the service by going to Start, typing in MSCONFIG and then clicking on the Services tab. Find McAfee Network Agent and uncheck the box.

It also might be a good idea to disable any third-party firewall like McAfee firewall or Norton firewall, etc.

Method 2- Update Your Network Card Driver

You can update your driver in one of two ways: either via Windows or by downloading the driver yourself manually from the manufacture’s website. I highly recommend downloading the latest driver yourself as Windows usually does not do a very good job, but here are the instructions in case you want to try it.

Click on Start, type in devmgmt.msc, press Enter and then expand Network Controllers and right-click on the problem network card.

Now click on the Driver tab and choose Update Driver.

If that doesn’t work, you can also uninstall the network driver and then reinstall it after a restart. This has also been known to fix the problem with some people. Note that Windows will automatically reinstall the driver for you. In case it does not, you can always download the latest driver and then install it.

Method 3 – Restart Your Router and Modem

Just in case, make sure you restart your wireless router and your modem because you’ll waste a lot of time messing with your computer for no reason if it’s actually a problem with the router.

Method 4 – Reset TCP/IP Stack

You can try to reset your network settings and fix any problems with the TCP/IP stack by running the Microsoft FixIt solution here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/299357

Method 6 – Use One Connection or Bridge Connections

If you have both an Ethernet connection enabled and a wireless connection on your laptop or desktop, that could be the cause of the problem. You can either try disconnecting one, restarting and then seeing if you can get Internet access for each individually or you can try to bridge the connections.

You can do this by going to Network and Sharing Center, click on Change Adapter Settings, then select both the Local Area Connection and the Wireless Network Connection and right-click on either one. You will see the option to Bridge Connections.

Doing this can fix the problem of both networks conflicting with each other. Give it a shot if nothing else has worked until now. You can always unbridge the connections later on if you like.

Method 7 – Check Adapter Settings

This solution is a little trick because it can be something random, but you need to go toNetwork and Sharing Center, click on Change Adapter Settings, then right-click on Local Area Connection or Wireless Network Connection and choose Properties.

You’ll see a box that says This connection uses the following items, which contains a list of protocols used by the network card to communicate. It should look something like this:

Now if you installed some network related software like VPN software or something like that, you might have some strange extra stuff listed in there. You need to uninstall those items and basically have something that looks like the list above. Once those are removed, restart and see it that solves your problem.

Method 8 – Disable Virtual Ethernet Adapters

If you have VMWare or any other virtual machine software installed, go to Device Manager and disable any virtual network adapters that may appear there under Network Controllers. You won’t be able to connect to the Internet from your virtual machine, but you can always re–enable them for that. If the problem goes away though, it might be worth upgrading to the latest version of the virtual machine software to see if it’s more compatible with Windows 7.

Method 9 – Enable/Disable Network Connection

You can go to Network and Sharing Center, click on Change Adapter Settings and then right-click on the network adapter and choose Disable. Wait a little while and then re-enable the network connection.

That’s all the solutions I could find for fixing this problem. If you still have unidentified network with no Internet access, then post your specs here and we’ll try to help! Enjoy!

Here are more steps you can try to get this issues resolved

Regedit to manually force the DHCP/DNS values

To resolve this issue, disable the DHCP BROADCAST flag:

1)    Click Start, type regedit

2)    Locate and then click the following registry subkey:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces\ {GUID}

In this registry path, click the (GUID) subkey that corresponds to the network adapter that is connected to the network.

3)    On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD (32-bit) Value.

4)    In the New Value #1 box, type DhcpConnEnableBcastFlagToggle, and then press ENTER.

5)    Right-click DhcpConnEnableBcastFlagToggle, and then click Modify.

6)    In the Value data box, type 1, and then click OK.

7)    Close Registry Editor.

I would suggest that you disable the Internet Protocol Version 6(IPv6) on the network adapter and check if it helps. 

a.     Right click on the Network icon in the System Tray and click on Network and Sharing center.

b.     Click on Change Adapter settings.

c.     Right click on Network Adapter and Choose ‘Properties’.

d.     Uncheck “Internet Protocol Version 6”.

e.     Click on OK.

Note: By disabling IPv6, you will not be able to use Windows Meeting Space or any application that relies on the Windows Peer-to-Peer Networking platform