Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How does Windows decide whether your computer has full Internet access?

devblogs.microsoft.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 305 posts

Re: How does Windows decide whether your computer has full Internet access?

#51

Post by r1ch »

Unfortunately it's not that simple. On my system with bridges for hyper-v and wireguard tunnels, the NCSI service happily ignores my default route and tries to establish connectivity through one of the other devices when resuming from sleep.

It wouldn't be that bad if it was just the status indicator, but several apps refuse to work properly if "internet" isn't detected. The workaround is to disable every other adapter in the system until NCSI is happy. I ended up binary patching the connection test service in memory to get it to always return true.

Re: How does Windows decide whether your computer has full Internet access?

#53

Post by mrjin »

Not sure when Micro$oft can stop such abusive moves. Why the user have to be able connect to your endpoint to prove they are connected? Why keep nagging me to set active hours coz I regularly use my computer 8am to 6pm?

Anyway, won't be my problem much longer.

Re: How does Windows decide whether your computer has full Internet access?

#55

Post by JadeNB »

cronin101 wrote: post #35
throwaway0x7E6 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

even with the cable unplugged and no wifi module?

Yes, can confirm I was installing Win11 on my brother-in-law's new PC that I built last week and there were no default drivers for the USB wifi adapter I had attempted to reuse from his old machine. The entire process was roadblocked wanting me to plug into Ethernet until I researched the secret keyboard combination that allows you to shell out and then restart with the ability to do a network-free install.

> I researched the secret keyboard combination that allows you to shell out and then restart with the ability to do a network-free install.

What is the secret keyboard combination?

Re: How does Windows decide whether your computer has full Internet access?

#56

Post by gerdesj »

dahdum wrote: post #32
gerdesj wrote: post #11

This really gets on my nerves! Some twit of a programmer (probably via a committee) "knows" whether a system has connectivity. For some people Facebook is the internet and for others it is Outlook. Somehow a twiddler at MS has decided that a file on a web server at some wanky location is the internet and that's the final answer. "I cn haz a file" is fine lovely internets! No it bloody well isn't. You should be constr…

> I run quite a few systems/sites that have multiple internet connections - deciding whether the internet is available is quite a nuanced thing and that Windows internet detector is bloody stupid, naive and a fucking hindrance. I'm not following this, where is the nuance? What problems does this cause and why are they so difficult to solve? Even if behind a strict firewall that allows only a few IPs or ranges (arguab…

When you have a router with multiple WANS, LANS and VPNS etc, routing can get a bit complicated.

For example how do you tell traffic to go via WAN2 (or 3 or whatever) instead of WAN1 if is really down (define really down). So you create a rule that says that all inbound on LAN is routed via a failover thing. That's fine but now you've broken RFC1918 routing. You try to connect to a remote site via 192.168.lol and its fucked.

So you now create a rule that forces 192.168.0.0/16, 172.16.0.0/12 and 10.0.0.0/8 to be routed via the usual routing table and after that you have a rule that worries about internets and multi WAN. Simples.

No of course it isn't that simple but it is quite close and good enough mostly!

There are several problems in search of a solution here. Is a WAN down? Usually you ping something. What do you do if the thing being pinged is down but the link is actually available and how do you deal with that? It gets to charts of risk/reward at this point.

Re: How does Windows decide whether your computer has full Internet access?

#57

Post by toast0 »

justusw wrote: post #49
cronin101 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, can confirm I was installing Win11 on my brother-in-law's new PC that I built last week and there were no default drivers for the USB wifi adapter I had attempted to reuse from his old machine. The entire process was roadblocked wanting me to plug into Ethernet until I researched the secret keyboard combination that allows you to shell out and then restart with the ability to do a network-free install.

I was using a Win 11 Pro installer stick on a Surface 4 the other day paired with a USB Ethernet interface. Aside from the fact that keyboard and mouse don’t work, because Windows doesn’t have drivers for a Microsoft Surface during install, I was able to convince Microsoft that I have no connection by unplugging the Ethernet cable right before the Microsoft account login prompt. Maybe I was lucky? Or really old insta…

If I've been following tech news, Pro lets you move on with a local account, but Home might not.

Re: How does Windows decide whether your computer has full Internet access?

#58

Post by qwertywert_ »

r1ch wrote: post #51

Unfortunately it's not that simple. On my system with bridges for hyper-v and wireguard tunnels, the NCSI service happily ignores my default route and tries to establish connectivity through one of the other devices when resuming from sleep. It wouldn't be that bad if it was just the status indicator, but several apps refuse to work properly if "internet" isn't detected. The workaround is to disable every other adapt…

Can't you disable NCSI in registry? Or does that not actually help for those other services internally?

Re: How does Windows decide whether your computer has full Internet access?

#59

Post by Godel_unicode »

gerdesj wrote: post #56
dahdum wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I run quite a few systems/sites that have multiple internet connections - deciding whether the internet is available is quite a nuanced thing and that Windows internet detector is bloody stupid, naive and a fucking hindrance. I'm not following this, where is the nuance? What problems does this cause and why are they so difficult to solve? Even if behind a strict firewall that allows only a few IPs or ranges (arguab…

When you have a router with multiple WANS, LANS and VPNS etc, routing can get a bit complicated. For example how do you tell traffic to go via WAN2 (or 3 or whatever) instead of WAN1 if is really down (define really down). So you create a rule that says that all inbound on LAN is routed via a failover thing. That's fine but now you've broken RFC1918 routing. You try to connect to a remote site via 192.168.lol and its…

Huh? If you have multiple WANs, presumably you’re running an actual routing protocol (BGP if WAN means WAN) and it’s solving your routing question based off of it’s configuration and the routes announced by it’s peers.

Also, I hope you’re not relying on ICMP to tell you meaningful things about your relationship with the internet. It lies.

Re: How does Windows decide whether your computer has full Internet access?

#60

Post by FpUser »

JadeNB wrote: post #55
cronin101 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, can confirm I was installing Win11 on my brother-in-law's new PC that I built last week and there were no default drivers for the USB wifi adapter I had attempted to reuse from his old machine. The entire process was roadblocked wanting me to plug into Ethernet until I researched the secret keyboard combination that allows you to shell out and then restart with the ability to do a network-free install.

> I researched the secret keyboard combination that allows you to shell out and then restart with the ability to do a network-free install. What is the secret keyboard combination?

https://www.makeuseof.com/windows-11-set-up-without-internet...
Post reply on HN