'LOCAL ONLY' ACCESS ON HOTEL NETWORKS

I travel frequently with my laptop (Vista) plus my smart phone. On numerous occasions at the destination hotel I can access the hotel WLAN but only local ie.no internet access. At the same time I can register my smart phone with the same credentials and reach the internet without problems.

I have followed all the Windows routines to reset my wireless switch but with no luck. Any help appreciated?

Wireless works perfectly on my home WLAN

Might be browser proxy settings... try setting to Auto Detect.

Have you got the laptop set to static IP?

You will need to change it to use DHCP for the hotel networks.

the hotel may require authentication before allowing full internet access.
fire up a browser to see if you are taken to an authorization page or payment page.
once registered/paid your mac address will be allowed internet access.
just like the cloud or bt openzone service in airports etc.

No - I thought of that! I'm on a hotel network now in Norway which is obviously working, but yesterday I got kicked off because an error message appeared about Windows Firewall. I don't have the exact text any more but I was recommended to stop it. I did and service was restored. But this sounds dodgy...Any more ideas? Thanks

It's Vista.

Vista is trying to do a secret hand shake (broadcast flag) but not all routers know what its talking about. Microsoft released a fix for this.

BROADCAST FLAG FIX

Thanks Wanapoo - problem solved!