Why does Windows 7 assume there is a new network connection when connecting to an existing access point?

Solution 1:

actually I think "user 99572 is fine" is on to something. it could very well be that due to the ip address being different enough from the ip it had last time it connected that it is thinking it's connecting to a different network with a similar name. but as "tripleee" pointed out not just any different ip address will do this, I think the ip has to be on a different subnet from the one before to be considered a different network. One possibly for why this could be happening is some routers have some sort of Isolation feature and if that's enabled the router will purposely put everyone on different subnets on purpose to keep them isolated from each other. But it may not assign you the same subnet every time your computer connects as all it's trying to do is put you on one that isn't already in use. from a networking perspective it would work just fine as long as the modem has an ip on the same subnet your currently in the computer would be able to find a path out to the internet and everything will work fine. From Windows perspective I'd guess it's using what subnet it's on to determine the difference between two different networks of a similar name, as such would be needed in corporate networks where you may have multiple people using the same set of AP's but get assigned different IP's possibly statically or with some mac bind or special log in system as there are those out there that will give you a ip on their public subnet first then when you log in it'll invalidate your lease and send you a new ip in your proper subnet. and they would want windows to know when they are on the public or private parts so that the info doesn't accidentally leak from file shares.