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I have windows 7 host running virtualbox with Linux and Vista Guest. Linux guest connects bridge network fine. Vista does not even see the network unless I use the Intel PRO/1000 MT Desktop adapter type. Using that type Vista sees and installs the device but can not use it. It does not see my network. Ipconfig shows ip address of 192.168.56.101 but doesn't have a default gateway assigned. Any suggestions to get the vista guest to communicate on the network?

That address is the one that VirtualBox uses for the host-only configuration. Are you sure you have it set to Bridged?
If it is what is your hosts network using for it address range?

Yeah that IP was from the host-only but I've tried it both ways with the same result. With bridged here is what I get:

Autoconfiguration IPv4 Address. . : 169.254.17.214
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.0.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :

ipconfig /renew times out.

Windows IP Configuration

An error occurred while renewing interface Local Area Connection 2 : unable to contact your DHCP server. Request has timed out.

oh yeah my host network uses 192.168.1.0/24 address range.

An error occurred while renewing interface Local Area Connection 2 : unable to contact your DHCP server. Request has timed out.

Pretty much says whats going on. Do you have a router in your network?

Shut down the guest. Not saved state and make sure that it is set to bridged and then boot the guest and run ipconfig /all. Post that here

Yeah I have a router at 192.168.1.1. There's not an issue with the router as best I can tell (all computers can ping and I'm on the net as I'm typing this from the host)

will do just a sec

Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : binaryc0de-PC
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection 2:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) PRO/1000 MT Desktop Adapter #2
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 08-00-27-27-88-7B
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::60bf:5379:b712:11d6%11(Preferred)
Autoconfiguration IPv4 Address. . : 169.254.17.214(Preferred)
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.0.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : fec0:0:0:ffff::1%1
fec0:0:0:ffff::2%1
fec0:0:0:ffff::3%1
NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

Tunnel adapter Local Area Connection* 6:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : isatap.{E7C62F2C-F293-4644-8406-B7BC418EA
217}
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Autoconfiguration IPv4 Address. . : 169.254.17.214(Preferred)
That is the Windows default address when it does not see a network.

Check the hosts firewall to see if it is blocking the guest

Host firewall was being managed by Macfee. So I turn off the firewall completely, shutdown and restarted the guest but got the same result. My Linux guest has been able to access through the firewall with out a problem.

Odd... I added Windows XP as a third guest OS and it works through the network fine. My Vista guest is the odd one out. Windows XP will work fine for what my intentions are (needed a 32bit development environment) but I'm still curious why Vista won't work.

Well you may have McAfee as a firewall but Vista has its own as well. Unless you turned off inbound and outbound on that I still think it is the problem.

Well I turned off the host firewall and then turned off the vista (guest) firewall. Then restarted the guest, but it's still not not able to connect (still showing the IP 169.254.17.214).

I got it to work. I used NAT instead of bridged. I tried that before and it didn't work. So not sure what happened but it is working now.