Server NIC icon shows yellow triangle with exclamation

Customer has a Windows Server 2012 system, and calls me to say that the NIC icon in the taskbar has a yellow triangle with an exclamation mark. This would normally indicate that there is no network/Internet connection.

And, when I opened up Network and Sharing Center, it reports that there is no Internet connection.

But, Internet is working just fine. So, what gives?

This situation will often occur when you have a server with multiple NIC adapters, but only one of them is active, and the others are disabled. And this was exactly the case with this custoer.

The solution is two-fold:

1. You need to change the binding order to put the active NIC first
2. And then you need to restart Network Location Awareness and change its default startup condition.

Step 1: Change binding order of NICs

• Unfortunately, finding out where to change the binding order is not always intuitive. These steps were for the 2012 Server I was working on
• Locate the network icon in your right taskbar, right click on the icon, and select ‘Open Network and Sharing Center’
• In the new window that displays, along the left side, click ‘Change adapter settings’
• A window displays listing your network adapters. Here comes the “tricky part”.
• Press the ALT key, and a new command menu bar will appear, like this:
  
• Click on Advanced, then click Advanced Settings
• If the active NIC is not listed first, then click to highlight it, and use the arrow keys to the right to move it up.
  
• For more information on changing the network protocol bindings, view this Microsoft article

Step 2: Reset Network Location Awareness service

• Open up Services control panel (Run –> services.msc)
• Find the Network Location Awareness service, click to select it, and then select Restart
• After the service has been restarted, right click on the service, and click Properties.and select to restart it.
• Go to Startup Type, and change it to ‘Automatic (Delayed Start)’
  
• Click OK and then close the Services windows