# Can't enable Internet Connection Sharing



## ZombieDentist (Sep 16, 2009)

*Sigh* this again eh?

Yeah I'm not much of a computer nazi so I don't understand an awful lot of technical terms, but everything I've read, and understood, hasn't worked.

Basically I want to setup internet connection sharing to use my laptop as a wireless adaptor to connect to Xbox live, but whenever I try enabling it I get that stupid error message saying "An error occurred when Internet Connection Sharing was being enabled".

The annoying thing is that I can easily do it on my sister's laptop which is connected to the same wireless router as mine.

I've tried bridging the connections but it doesn't work.

Help would be greatly appreciated

Merry Christmas,
Josh.


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## johnwill (Sep 26, 2002)

Let's see this from the machine.


Hold the *Windows* key and press *R*, then type *CMD* then press *Enter* to open a command prompt:

In the command prompt window that opens, type type the following command:

_Note that there is a space before the /ALL, but there is *NOT* a space after the / in the following command._

IPCONFIG /ALL

Right click in the command window and choose *Select All*, then hit *Enter* to copy the contents to the clipboard.
Paste the results in a message here.

If you are on a machine with no network connection, use a floppy, USB disk, or a CD-RW disk to transfer a text file with the information to allow pasting it here.


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## ZombieDentist (Sep 16, 2009)

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.0.6002]
Copyright (c) 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Users\Josh>IPCONFIG /ALL

Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : Josh-PC
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

Ethernet adapter Network Bridge:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : MAC Bridge Miniport
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 02-16-36-D1-15-B4
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Wireless LAN adapter Wireless Network Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Atheros AR5005G Wireless Network Adapter
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-19-7D-49-36-05
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.5(Preferred)
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : 28 December 2009 12:53:52
Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : 31 December 2009 12:53:51
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.1
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.1
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.1
NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Realtek RTL8139/810x Family Fast Ethernet
NIC
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-16-36-D1-15-B4
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration IPv4 Address. . : 169.254.236.121(Preferred)
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.0.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :
NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

C:\Users\Josh>


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## johnwill (Sep 26, 2002)

You are connected to a router with a base address of 192.168.0.1, which is the same base address that ICS uses. This is a known issue, and you can't change it. You'll have to change the base address of the wireless router to another subnet, say 192.168.1.1, then ICS will work.

The better way to do this is by bridging the two connections.


*Bridging two network connections:*


Make sure the secondary connection has DHCP enabled.
Open the Network Connections folder from the Start Menu, Settings.
Select the first connection to be used in the bridge and highlight it by left clicking on it.
Holding the Ctrl key, select the second connection to be used in the bridge by left clicking on it.
Right click on one of the two highlighted connections and select *Bridge Connections*.


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## cguest2 (Dec 29, 2009)

John...Don't mean to hijack this thread but I have the same issue. However, I can get ICS to work by changing the xbox side ip address to 192.xxx.1.1 and 192.xxx.1.2 respectively, but it gives me a strict NAT on Live.

So I tried to do a network bridge but it seems to be unsuccessful on my end. The bridge gets an automatic private addresses 169.xxx.xxx.xxx as does the xbox. Additionally, there is no internet connectivity on the computer after adding the bridge.


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## ZombieDentist (Sep 16, 2009)

johnwill said:


> You are connected to a router with a base address of 192.168.0.1, which is the same base address that ICS uses. This is a known issue, and you can't change it. You'll have to change the base address of the wireless router to another subnet, say 192.168.1.1, then ICS will work.
> 
> The better way to do this is by bridging the two connections.
> 
> ...


Like I said in the original post, I've bridged the connections but I still can't connect.


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## johnwill (Sep 26, 2002)

What exactly happens when you bridge the connections?


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## ZombieDentist (Sep 16, 2009)

The connections bridge exactly as they're supposed to, but xbox live just doesn't connect. Says there's something wrong with the network when I test the connection on the xbox.


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## johnwill (Sep 26, 2002)

Does the XBOX get an IP address assigned? Can you ping the XBOX from another computer on the network (not the one it's connected to).


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## ZombieDentist (Sep 16, 2009)

I'm not sure how I do this, could you walk me through?


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## johnwill (Sep 26, 2002)

Do you have another computer to do the test? What IP address does the XBOX get when you connect to the bridged connection?

On the other computer, open a command prompt and type: 

*PING <ip_add> *

<ip_add> is the IP address of the XBOX.


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## ZombieDentist (Sep 16, 2009)

johnwill said:


> Do you have another computer to do the test? What IP address does the XBOX get when you connect to the bridged connection?
> 
> On the other computer, open a command prompt and type:
> 
> ...


Sorry I'm a bit confused now. Do you want me to connect the Xbox to another computer via the ethernet cable? Because 1) ICS works fine on my sister's laptop, and 2) I have no idea how to bridge the connections on there because it's Windows 7 and it's a little different.


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## cguest2 (Dec 29, 2009)

What John is trying to find out is whether or not your xbox is being assigned a proper IP when connected to your computer through ICS....

Try the following, which are the steps I must use for ICS on xbox live.

>First make sure ICS is disabled.
Then in the xbox dashboard check to ensure that the network settings are all set to automatic.
>Disconnect the Ethernet cable going from the PC to the xbox.
>Enable ICS and wait for it to completely finish enabling (it take 10-15 seconds on my computer).
>Reconnect the Ethernet cable to the PC and xbox.
>After 10 seconds or so try connecting to Live.

Additionally, to give john his answer you need to go back into the xbox dashboard and view the network settings and see what IP address the xbox has. If it is working correctly it will be something like 192.168.0.xxx

What you don't want is an address that looks like 169.xxx.xxx.xxx

I don't know how vista behaves but on xp, every time I shut off my xbox or put my computer on standby, I have to redo the above steps since DHCP on the ICS seems to disable.


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## ZombieDentist (Sep 16, 2009)

> >Enable ICS and wait for it to completely finish enabling (it take 10-15 seconds on my computer).


Like I said in the original post, I can't do this part. I'm getting the error message "An error occurred when Internet Connection Sharing was being enabled".


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## johnwill (Sep 26, 2002)

Can you disable or remove that *MAC Bridge Miniport* from Device Manager?


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## cguest2 (Dec 29, 2009)

ZombieDentist said:


> Like I said in the original post, I can't do this part. I'm getting the error message "An error occurred when Internet Connection Sharing was being enabled".


My apologies. I forgot that it was giving you an error.
Looking at the Ipconfig from above I see two things that seem off. It looks as if you have a network bridge enabled. I'm not sure that bridging and ICS can be supported at the same time. You should check if any network adapters are bridged and remove them from the bridge if they are.

The other thing I see that I don't like is the IP range of your wireless router. It is set to (192.168.0.1). Now I am not sure how it works on Vista or 7, but on XP ICS will want to assign the shared connection as (192.168.0.1) which will cause it to fail due to the conflict. The easy remedy for this is to change your router IP to something like (192.168.1.1).

If those suggestions still don't help, how about checking windows services? I don't know off hand, but I believe that there are a few necessary services which need to be running for ICS to work. Maybe John could add some input on that.


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## ZombieDentist (Sep 16, 2009)

I disabled the MAC Bridge Miniport but still no luck, I'm still getting the error message.

How would I go about changing the router IP? Would it be a case of logging into my router? Because this would be a problem as the username and password assigned to my router is constantly being rejected.


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## cguest2 (Dec 29, 2009)

ZombieDentist said:


> I disabled the MAC Bridge Miniport but still no luck, I'm still getting the error message.
> 
> How would I go about changing the router IP? Would it be a case of logging into my router? Because this would be a problem as the username and password assigned to my router is constantly being rejected.


Yes you will need to login to the router.

Is this your router (you have access to it)? If you do, and you forgot your password you will have to reset it with a paperclip in the little hole on the back of the router. If you never setup a password in the first place it is likely it is still set as the default. This can be found by searching online for default login and your router model.

Though this is one of the problems with your setup, it doesn't seem like the only issue. Usually if it is just a conflicting IP with ICS you will get an error indicating that, and not just a general ICS error occurred.

I am thinking that the proper services for ICS may not all be enabled. I will have to do some more research to figure out which ones you need. Also try temporally disabling any firewalls/ anti-virus programs you may be using just to rule them out.:wink:


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