Win Vista alternate (network) settings not working

I've got a complex issue that's puzzling me; if anyone knows what might fix this I'd appreciate any info.
Two users have Windows Vista (home premium in their case, although I use x64 Vista Ultimate and have the same issue on that version as well) and have wireless networks at home (dynamic IP, typical residential connection) and at work (static IP, WAP-Enterprise, MS-CHAP v2 Active Directory authentication, etc. security settings).
When I enter in the static IP, subnet, gateway, etc. in "Alternative Configuration" they aren't able to connect. When I enter the same IP information in the regular settings they can connect just fine. So basically, using "Alternative Configuration" doesn't work.
A little background, the active directory network at work officially only supports WinXP (and some Win2k) and not Vista. However, importing the appropriate security certificate and setting the static IP settings allows the Vista users to connect to the internet (which is all the functionality they need, not the full AD applications). The PCs aren't joined to the domain, but I've done the same procedure with WinXP Pro ("passing through" to the internet without joining the PC to the domain) and Windows Vista also works fine this way on the DCHP (main) part of our work network. (I might add as a caveat that the higher-ups at work don't know how I got Vista connected to the internet on the work network in the first place, so I've tried the official tech support to no avail.) Any insight would be appreciated.