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I have Vista installed on my work PC. Every so often when I'm on the net I lose access to some or all of the pages I need to look at. I know that Gordon has had the same thing happen since he mentioned it in one of his columns in PCW (you have at least one reader Gordon ).

Today I read a solution for the problem here. It involves opening a command prompt is admin mode and entering the command IPCONFIG /FLUSHDNS. Thought this might be of use to someone.

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Nikon D80, Nikkor lenses: 35mm f1.8 G AF-S DX, 50mm f/1.8 AF D, 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G ED-IF AF-S DX, 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED AF-S VR, SB800 flash
My photos on SmugMug

Hi Phil,

Good tip. Haven't seen the problem you describe here but then I tend to do most browsing from XP.

If it is a regular occurrence then, as you know, you can create a Desktop shortcut.

For those who aren't too familiar with this procedure, you right-click on the Desktop and select New and Shortcut. In the "location" edit box type "ipconfig" without the quotes and click Next. When prompted for the name you could type FlushDNS.

The shortcut is created on the Desktop but before you use it you must right-click on it and select Properties. Append " /flushdns" to the end of the Target text, which has been expanded to include the full path. Again no quotes and note the leading space. Then click on the Advanced button, select "Run as Administrator" and OK your way out. If you want to get fancy you can click Change Icon before finally OKing your way out of the Properties dialog box.

Bob.

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OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

Phil, if you manage to solve this problem I'll owe you big time!

Ironically, Vista decided it wasn't going to let me view this page yet though!

Gordon

Thanks for the tip on the shortcut Bob. I've set one up for when the problem next occurs.

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Nikon D80, Nikkor lenses: 35mm f1.8 G AF-S DX, 50mm f/1.8 AF D, 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G ED-IF AF-S DX, 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED AF-S VR, SB800 flash
My photos on SmugMug

Hi guys, I'm afraid I'm still coming up with lots of addresses which don't resolve on my Vista system, but do resolve fine on other XP systems on the same network.

Strangely if you delete the www part, and just enter, say, http://cameralabs.com , then the page sometimes loads under Vista - but again not always. It seems to be completely random when this happens and what sites it happens with... very, very annoying!

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This is probably totally unrelated but are you, by any chance, using a Cisco firewall and/or router? There is an incompatibility between Vista and all but the latest releases of IOS (the software running the Cisco firewall). Memory tells me that the problem related to packet sizes. There is a temporary Vista workaround which worked for me until I managed to persuade Cisco to send me a free upgrade (and that was like squeezing blood from a stone).

If you think this might be part of the problem then let me know and I'll try and find my workaround tomorrow.

Bob.

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OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

Hi Bob, I'm using a Netgear DG834N ADSL modem / router...

The odd thing is that all sites load fine on XP systems - it's just roulette with the Vista machines...!

Do you have DNS problems in general (for example looking up a site in the Command Prompt window), or just from the browser?
I had no problems accessing this site from 2 different Vista machines.

Darrin

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Nikon D40 | Nikkor 18-55 VR | Nikkor 55-200 VR | Voigtländer Ultron 40mm SL-II | Nikon Speedlight SB-400

It's not this site per-se Darrin, but randomly ANY site. I'd say about 1 in 5 sites just don't load first time on my Vista systems, but the same sites do just fine on XP systems on the same network at the same time. But then later these sites WILL work fine on the Vista system - it seems random...

Hi,

I tracked down the following Microsoft Knowledge Base article "Network connectivity may fail when you try to use Windows Vista behind a firewall device" which describes the problem I was having under Vista.

It describes how to temporarily turn off (and restore) the Receive Window Auto-Tuning feature so you can troubleshoot. This worked for me until I was able to upgrade my router's software. By the way, the Knowledge Base article describes opening a Command Prompt window to implement the fix but, to my surprise, it doesn't specify starting that Command Prompt window as an Administrator which would be my recommendation.

Just in case you think the Knowledge Base article doesn't describe your symptoms then check out the tech-recipes article which starts:

In Vista TCP Window Scaling is enabled by default. If your router does not tolerate this feature, it can cause random DNS and connection errors. This is a common cause of vista limited connection errors.

Anyway, it costs nothing to try the fix except a slight loss of TCP tuning and it is esy to put Vista back the way it was when you are done.

Bob.

_________________
OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.