DHCP and Vista Firewall

[Guest]

I recently bought a laptop with Windows Vista, and it just can't get DHCP
adresses from my DHCP server. I tried Etheral, and the DHCP packets are
running normally in the wire. Checked the Event Viewer, and it seeems like
the problem is Vista Firewall. I keep getting this odd Audit Failure message:
Windows Firewall could not notify user that it blocked inbound connection
from application. Error Code 2.
Weird thing is, the firewall service is disabled!

Any ideas?

 

[Chuck]

I recently bought a laptop with Windows Vista, and it just can't get DHCP
adresses from my DHCP server. I tried Etheral, and the DHCP packets are
running normally in the wire. Checked the Event Viewer, and it seeems like
the problem is Vista Firewall. I keep getting this odd Audit Failure message:
Windows Firewall could not notify user that it blocked inbound connection
from application. Error Code 2.
Weird thing is, the firewall service is disabled!

Any ideas?

Enable the service. Under Windows XP, disabling the firewall service was known
to cause it to fail open, ie, no traffic. That makes sense, as if the service
failed closed and you could get malware to make the service crash, your computer
would be wide open.

If you don't want protection from the firewall (why not?) turn the firewall off.
But leave the service running.

 

[Guest]

I had tried all combinations with Vista Firewall and Network Settings
(Private, Public, turning the firewall on and off, etc. etc..) Disabling the
service was kind of "last chance".

I found out what's going on after all. When I renewed the IP's on XP
machines, they just sent DHCP REQUEST, and get ack by the DHCP server. VISTA
sends a DHCP DISCOVER packet, that the DHCP server (it's a DLINK DSL-500G)
seems to ignore. Without response, there's no DCHP REQUEST, and thus no IP
from the server.

I searched DLINK's website, and found no firmware upgrade for my modem. So:
Is there a way to disable the "DHCP DISCOVER" on VISTA's TCP Stack? Or am I
left to manually set IP's on VISTA machines?

 

[Chuck]

I had tried all combinations with Vista Firewall and Network Settings
(Private, Public, turning the firewall on and off, etc. etc..) Disabling the
service was kind of "last chance".

I found out what's going on after all. When I renewed the IP's on XP
machines, they just sent DHCP REQUEST, and get ack by the DHCP server. VISTA
sends a DHCP DISCOVER packet, that the DHCP server (it's a DLINK DSL-500G)
seems to ignore. Without response, there's no DCHP REQUEST, and thus no IP
from the server.

I searched DLINK's website, and found no firmware upgrade for my modem. So:
Is there a way to disable the "DHCP DISCOVER" on VISTA's TCP Stack? Or am I
left to manually set IP's on VISTA machines?

Is the Vista computer renewing its IP address, or getting one initially? I'll
wager that the XP computers already have addresses, and are just looking to
renew theirs. They don't need to do a discover.

Does the DLink have a DHCP log? Find out why it's ignoring the DHCP request
from the Vista computer. DHCP Discover is a fundamental process; I doubt that
its ignoring those for no reason.

 

[RamaSubbu SK]

Try the following
Just Boot the machine into Windows XP and do ipconfig /release this will
lease the IP address and then boot into vista.

Thanks
-RamaSubbu SK

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the help, Chuck and RamaSubbu.

Yeah, I was wrong, XP machines did not send DISCOVER packets because they
were only renewing. After /Release, I had the discover packets on the wire.

Turned out the problem was on the DHCP server. For some odd reason, it was
completely ignoring the VISTA discovery packets, but responding to the XP
packets. I tried resetting the server (turning it off and back on), change
the pool addresses, disable DLINK's firewall, all without success.

Later, I disabled the DHCP service, deleted both DHCP pools (there's one
pool for the wired network and another for the wireless), restarted the
server and re-created them with different address sets. Now everything is
working just fine.

 

[Chuck]

Thanks for the help, Chuck and RamaSubbu.

Yeah, I was wrong, XP machines did not send DISCOVER packets because they
were only renewing. After /Release, I had the discover packets on the wire.

Turned out the problem was on the DHCP server. For some odd reason, it was
completely ignoring the VISTA discovery packets, but responding to the XP
packets. I tried resetting the server (turning it off and back on), change
the pool addresses, disable DLINK's firewall, all without success.

Later, I disabled the DHCP service, deleted both DHCP pools (there's one
pool for the wired network and another for the wireless), restarted the
server and re-created them with different address sets. Now everything is
working just fine.

Well, we're glad to have provided part of the solution. And thanks for updating
the thread.

 

[Joe Guidera]

The way that Windows performs DHCP has changed in Vista. See if the
following resolves your issue.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/928233

Joe