A user cannot access the internet from a corporate laptop.

An IP address beginning with 169.254.x.x is an APIPA address (Automatic Private IP Addressing). CompTIA A+ explains that APIPA is assigned automatically by Windows when the NIC cannot reach a DHCP server. This indicates the laptop requested an IP lease but never received one.

APIPA addresses allow only local subnet communication and cannot access the internet, because no default gateway, DNS, or valid subnet configuration is provided. Since all other employees can access the internet, the DHCP server is functioning generally, but it is not delivering an address to this specific laptop—possibly due to cable issues, Wi-Fi authentication failure, DHCP scope exhaustion, or NIC misconfiguration.

A subnet mask misconfiguration (A) would still show a normal IP, not APIPA. IPv6-only configuration (C) would not produce a 169.254 address. An outdated NIC driver (B) could cause network instability but does not directly generate APIPA.

Thus, the root cause is that the DHCP server did not assign an IP address.