http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7network/thread/040d0b12-795c-478e-b697-e3056f5875e4

This is a bug report for two problems. First, Microsoft appear to have a primitive to nonexistent mechanism for end-user bug reporting for Windows 7.  As best I was able to find, the only ways for end users to report bugs are to pay a non-trivial fee for incident support or to register on a support forum that is only trivially monitored by the product's vendor.  By comparison, open-source projects of all sizes, ranging from only two or three active programmers to hundreds of active developers, tend to have better bug reporting mechanisms for their end users.

While Windows 7 does appear to have the ability to discover and report problems automatically, neither Windows 7 nor Microsoft.com present a viable means for their users to report problems that the software is not able to discover on its own.

I humbly request that Microsoft take this first problem as constructive criticism and correct this problem.

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Second, and more urgently, Windows 7 appears to have a wireless connection bug.

Platform: eMachines eM250 netbook preinstalled with Windows 7 Starter, with all current vendor and Microsoft updates applied as of 2010-06-26.  The security applications supplied by eMachines (trial versions of Norton/Symantec products) were successfully uninstalled, and they have been replaced with Microsoft Security Essentials, which is running and up-to-date.

This PC connects to wireless access points manufactured by Cisco (Linksys and Aeronet brands), Netgear, Belkin, and others, using no security, WEP, WPA, and WPA2, and many of these are saved as preferred networks.  I am able to view and manage these preferred network connections via: Start -> Control Panel -> Network and Internet -> Network and Sharing Center -> Manage wireless networks.

This problem manifests whether starting up, resuming from hibernation, or just moving into range of a preferred network.

If Windows is left alone (no Internet-aware applications running), and if Windows is not already connected to a network, then it connects automatically to the preferred wireless network that is in range.  This is the expected behavior.

However, if Windows is not yet connected to a network, if an Internet application is started before Windows connects to a preferred wireless network, and if that application attempts to use the Internet, then Windows will never connect to a preferred wireless network automatically.  The Network Connection icon in the System Tray must be opened, the preferred network manually selected, and the "Connect" button that appears on selection must be manually clicked.  This is not the expected behavior.

It does not matter whether the Internet application is a Microsoft application, such as Internet Explorer and Windows Live Mail, or a third-party application, such as Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird.

The expected behavior is that, if Windows is not connected to a network, if wireless networks are available, and if one of those wireless networks is a preferred network, then Windows should connect to it automatically regardless of whether or not any running applications are trying to access the Internet.

Please advise, and please correct this bug.

Thank you.

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Windows Genuine Advantage disadvantaged my genuine Windows. Posted from genuine Ubuntu.

Two problems, and no easy solution to either one.  I'm expecting that my thread over on Microsoft Answers will be deleted, then an update will be pushed through Windows Update fixing the problem.

My Microsoft Answers forum signature dates from the WGA failure of August 2007, and Microsoft's failure to react to the incident properly (even though they did react to it promptly).  I haven't yet figured out how to change it to something more timely, though it's hard to be more appropriate.

I really don't care if my thread is deleted or not; I care whether or not Microsoft choose to address the more urgent problem at all.  It would be a step to winning a former Microsoft customer back, to say nothing of all the Microsoft customers made former customers by the failure that is Windows Vista.