Windows 8 confusion

[Channel Hopper]

I've supplied a laptop to a good customer of mine who is currently unable to climb the stairs to her old PC in the spare room following a fall - the BT hub and main socket are dedicated to that room.

The laptop is modern with a large screen and keyboard to allow easy access to Skype and BT email, not far shrt of her original XP system upstairs, and the wireless signal is excellent in the room she uses it in, with one click access to both services. The issue is with the Win 8 front page and an unfortunate incident with Bing yesterday.

I'm not sure what exactly occurred, but she clicked on the Bing square, up came a screensaving/locking page with an attractive landscape image, et voila, the broadband stopped dead (limited access legend) on the laptop.

I can confirm the old PC hardwired to the hub is fine, and the wifi function of the laptop is good since it is also picking up faint signals from other broadband hubs/routers in neighbouring houses. No matter what I try though her own hub is not allowing her to connect with the laptop, despite me moving it around the house and right up agaisnt the hub.

Would restoring to an earlier time be the correct route forwards, or is there something else I can try ? I've looked through the network/security prompts on the help pages and gone through the processes with BT India with no success so far.

Even if I do fix it the modern first page is likely to be her downfall as soon as I leave, she is now somewhat reluctant to have the laptop as her main access to the outside world (even daring to try the stairs to access emails, even though her doctor has told her not to).

I thought I was doing her a favour with a newish PC but I feel that installing an olde version fo XP professional may be the only way to stop this from happening again.

Thanks in advance

 

[Analoguesat]

Put "Classic Shell" on the laptop & you get a sensible front end back. Its free.

 

[Mickha]

I think you're on the right track, rather than go through the process of uninstalling any new software, and scanning for viruses, spyware, I'd do a system restore, to a point prior to the problems, if it's still possible.
Modern spyware, virus software, tries to disable system restore, and wipe out system restore points.
If this fails I would re-install Windows, after backing up any necessary documents, emails, favourites, etc.., then do, as Analoguesat suggests, and try the classic windows theme.
What anti virus software/anti spyware is she running?

 

[Archived-1]

This should help CH.
http://www.fixedbyvonnie.com/2013/1...or-no-connectivity-wi-fi-issues-in-windows-8/

 

[PaulR]

Interesting. My wife and I have had a pair of identical laptops for a year now. Running Win 8.1 the first thing I did was install Classic Shell as suggested above. We have had no problems accessing wifi until two weeks ago when we were in France. Suddenly I found that we were both getting access problems exactly as described. I could get the service back by rebooting the modem and I put that down as the cause especially as, one time, the modem was showing an orange fault LED.

Anyway we've been back in the UK for a week now and then this morning the same fault presented itself on my laptop. I couldn't believe my eyes. The modem wasn't showing any errors but I switched it off anyway and after a short while my laptop was showing the wifi network as being available again.

So, I was pleased to see the link and I've disabled the power saving option as suggested so we'll see how it goes. I suspect that there's been a change following one of the regular updates for three of us to have been affected so recently.

 

[Analoguesat]

Ive got an unregistered copy of win8 on an old laptop - on first boot it drops the wifi every time a few seconds after initialising the main screen - the limited connectivity error. A reboot fixes it every time so I'll be trying some of those tips as well.

 

[Channel Hopper]

I have restored the laptop to an earlier time and so far she is behaving herself.

Will add a spare 2Gb of RAM later this afternoon.

 

[Analoguesat]

Ive got an unregistered copy of win8 on an old laptop - on first boot it drops the wifi every time a few seconds after initialising the main screen - the limited connectivity error. A reboot fixes it every time so I'll be trying some of those tips as well.

Disabling the power saving option on the wifi card has sorted this issue.