Cannot Connect to the Internet from a Virtual Machine

When you start a Web browser in a Virtual PC session (from a virtual machine), you may receive a message that prompts you to connect to the Internet. For example, if you start Microsoft Internet Explorer in a Virtual PC session, you may receive the following error message: When you click Connect, the Web browser does not connect to the Internet, and it may stop responding.

This problem occurs even though you can connect to the Internet from the host Macintosh computer (for example, when you close the Virtual PC session, you can connect to the Internet by using Microsoft Internet Explorer for Macintosh).

This problem may occur if the Shared Networking option is not selected.

To resolve this problem, follow these steps:

1. In the Virtual PC List dialog box, click the guest operating system that you want to configure, and then click Settings.
2. Click Networking, and then click to select the Enable Networking check box.
3. Click Shared Networking, and then click OK.

Note When you use Shared Networking, you must configure the virtual machine operating system to use Dynamic Host Control Protocol (DHCP). See the virtual machine operating system documentation for more information about how to do this.

Shared networking uses internal network address translation (NAT) that is built into Virtual PC that enables one or more virtual machines to share the IP address of the host Macintosh computer. With this option, you must configure the virtual machine operating system to use Dynamic Host Control Protocol (DHCP). Virtual PC assigns the virtual machine a temporary, non-routable IP address and performs any packet translations that are required.