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

devblogs.microsoft.com

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

#161
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What server do you suggest they use? Android uses Google servers is that also abusive?

I don't want that sh*t to be there in the first place. No one knows better than the end user. And also, if the user could not reach some M$ server does not mean users' network was not connected to the internet. Anyway, won't be a trouble for me much longer. Retiring all my Windows instances, had enough.

>No one knows better than the end user.

Disagree.

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

#162
Too bad it almost never works correctly. Even now it says I have no Internet while I do and can access those txt files.

I used thousadands of Windows machines in last decade, this is typical. You can ignore this "feature" almost entirelly.

If you introduce proxy in your system, then you can be certain that it will not work, including Windows updates. You have to masssage your system with net commands and learn about WinHTTP proxy (that nobody heard about) sfor it to sometimes work.

To deal with this and other nuisances I made 2 functions in PowerShell:

Update-Proxy https://github.com/majkinetor/posh/blob/master/MM_Network/Up...

Update-CLIProxy https://github.com/majkinetor/posh/blob/master/MM_Network/Up...

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

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And to my parents that will mean nothing

But they still unknowingly suffer from the harm it did to network effects and ability to deploy new types of internet apps.

Even without NAT I don't necessarily want any old program to be immediately immediately reachable from the outside, so I still want a default-deny inbound firewall, and as long as it happens under your control, there's not much of a difference between having to configure my router's NAT and having to configure its firewall (in the case of my home router it's literally the same settings page). I.e. no big deal for me, and still a bit of a struggle for non-techies (but with sufficient motivation some will still manage it).

(And if you want something like UPnP to let programs automatically punch holes themselves anyway, again it doesn't matter much whether we're talking about NAT or "just" a plain firewall.)

The true evilness of NAT only really comes in when it's done by some third party outside of your control (CGNAT and friends), but I think that compared to home routers doing NAT the latter is a slightly more recent phenomenon that only got widespread traction when the IPv4 shortage became more acute.

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

#164
post #38

I'm not sure if it's still in use but iPhones used to hit http://www.apple.com/library/test/success.html to test connectivity. I used to use it to test connectivity on my own apps because Apple is probably better at making sure a url reachable than I am.

I believe they hit http://captive.apple.com now (and that's what I use).

http://example.com is also good.

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

#165

Two things I’ve always wanted to do is figure out how to cache windows updates on my local network without an enterprise windows install, and how to block windows updates by sinkholing domains and/or ip addresses (I work in IT security). Can anyone give any tips on either of these?

Why do you want to block windows updates?

Sometimes Windows installs an upgrade that insists I must connect my user account to a Microsoft account. It will not let me boot the OS if I don't. Only hell if I know what my Microsoft account is. I never use it. I need to use my web browser to find out. But I can't, because I need to set up my Microsoft account first. So I have to use another computer which will let me use it even without a Microsoft account, and then try to figure out my Microsoft account password. Then boot into Windows, let it connect the accounts, go into account options and try to find the hidden dialog to separate them again because hell fucking no I don't want Microsoft to associate my user account with my email address.

Being shafted like this every now and then has eroded my trust for Windows' updates.

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

#166

Too bad it almost never works correctly. Even now it says I have no Internet while I do and can access those txt files. I used thousadands of Windows machines in last decade, this is typical. You can ignore this "feature" almost entirelly. If you introduce proxy in your system, then you can be certain that it will not work, including Windows updates. You have to masssage your system with net commands and learn about…

It works perfectly well for 99.9999% of the users. The few exceptions are people with proxy servers, virtual machines and other exotic network configs.

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

#167

Too bad it almost never works correctly. Even now it says I have no Internet while I do and can access those txt files. I used thousadands of Windows machines in last decade, this is typical. You can ignore this "feature" almost entirelly. If you introduce proxy in your system, then you can be certain that it will not work, including Windows updates. You have to masssage your system with net commands and learn about…

It works perfectly well for 99.9999% of the users. The few exceptions are people with proxy servers, virtual machines and other exotic network configs.

That is not my experience and you can't just imagine number like that.

I am currently on basic OS install without anything in between and it doesn't work. I just switched from home router to my phone's hotspot and its the same.

It seems its not only Windows problem. Viber desktop has exclamation icon and it will persist until it is restarted, Mattermost works, Signal works etc.

Check it out: https://i.imgur.com/Oi5gmw4.png

BTW, didnt know proxy is exotic, its literrary the norm in the company.

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

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you want to block windows updates?

Because working in security sometimes I want to test malware on outdated AV, blocking full internet causes command and control failures, creating a weird spot to analyse traffic. Disabling Defender is not persistent (it seems to switch itself on, etc).

If you disable defender using group policy, from my experience that's been disabled consistently for a year no problems. Latest version of Windows 10.

Note you need to disable tamper protection and reboot first otherwise it silently reenables itself.

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

#169
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also currently the only way to bypass the need for an MS account when setting up a new PC.

And MS accounts make zero sense to anyone who has a private NAS or need to interact with anything non windows with kerberos.

It's worse than that. The account it creates is somehow "special". I have not yet figured out a way to connect to a computer with an MS account via RDP (yes, RDP is on and allowed through the firewall, the user is a local admin (the default)). Ditto for accessing that PC's shares.

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

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also currently the only way to bypass the need for an MS account when setting up a new PC.

You can also try to join a domain, enter bad credentials, wait for the error to show up, and then select a local account I believe. That may not be available in the home edition of Windows 11, though.

IIRC you don't need bad credentials. It just offers to create a local account, without even asking to connect to the domain.

But yeah, I'm pretty sure the domain join is only an option on the pro and enterprise editions.

I've also found out that the domain join is only offered if it can contact the internet. I installed this on a brand-new laptop the other day, and it didn't detect the wifi card and it had no wired network. It absolutely refused to go past the "let me connect to the internet" phase until I went through the "hidden terminal" dance.

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