Wireless Laptops with Ethernet NIC

[Guest]

We have WinXP wireless laptops that have Ethernet NICs. Do you know of any
problems having two connections on different subnets to the same network?
These laptops will be using both the wireless NIC and the Ethernet NIC
depending on where it is located at the time. Will Microsoft Win2000 DNS,
DHCP, WINS, etc have a problem with this?
Thanks,
Warner.

 

[Ace Fekay [MVP]]

In

We have WinXP wireless laptops that have Ethernet NICs. Do you know
of any problems having two connections on different subnets to the
same network? These laptops will be using both the wireless NIC and
the Ethernet NIC depending on where it is located at the time. Will
Microsoft Win2000 DNS, DHCP, WINS, etc have a problem with this?
Thanks,
Warner.

Depending on if you want to register both connections into DNS and will
register the one connected at the time. Then you have to take the TTL of
your DNS and WINS records into account. WINS should overwrite the current
entry with the new reg, but DNS may make a duplicate. May not be too big of
a deal. Just enable Scavenging in DNS.


--
Regards,
Ace

Please direct all replies ONLY to the Microsoft public newsgroups
so all can benefit.

This posting is provided "AS-IS" with no warranties or guarantees
and confers no rights.

Ace Fekay, MCSE 2003 & 2000, MCSA 2003 & 2000, MCSE+I, MCT, MVP
Microsoft Windows MVP - Windows Server - Directory Services
Infinite Diversities in Infinite Combinations.
=================================

 

[Kevin D. Goodknecht Sr. [MVP]]

In

We have WinXP wireless laptops that have Ethernet NICs. Do you know
of any problems having two connections on different subnets to the
same network? These laptops will be using both the wireless NIC and
the Ethernet NIC depending on where it is located at the time. Will
Microsoft Win2000 DNS, DHCP, WINS, etc have a problem with this?
Thanks,
Warner.

The only problem you may have is if you try to just unplug the wired NIC or
just turn off the wireless NIC. Doing this will leave the old registrations
in DNS and possibly cause connection errors if you have shared resources on
the laptop.

Always run ipconfig /release before disconnecting either NIC. You can do
this with a batch file on the desktop. You should also have a batch file
with this command: ipconfig /renew & ipconfig /flushdns for reconnecting.

 

[Herb Martin]

We have WinXP wireless laptops that have Ethernet NICs. Do you know of any
problems having two connections on different subnets to the same network?
These laptops will be using both the wireless NIC and the Ethernet NIC
depending on where it is located at the time. Will Microsoft Win2000 DNS,
DHCP, WINS, etc have a problem with this?

Keep them on different subnets and it should be no worse than the
other posters have indicated.

Do NOT put two NICs from the same machine on the same "bridged"
network -- and yes, todays wireless hubs can commonly bridge a
wireless net to a wired Ethernet. This is fine for very small networks
using a single subnet but it will play havoc with that machines
connectivity if both NICs are ever active concurrently.

(Bridged network = single broadcast domain)

Train users (good luck but necessary) to RELEASE DHCP which
should de-register dynamic addresses in DNS, especially if the
DHCP server is setup to handle DNS and deregister the clients.

ipconfig /release
(and /renew when reaching the new subnet...)

A batch file is good for this -- it is much easier to teach them
to run the batch file than why or how to perform the commands.
(Icon/shortcut on desktop, or better on quicklaunch or Start Menu.

Also consider including commands to nbtstat -RR (caps are needed)
"Re-Register" NetBIOS with WINS, and IPConfig /registerDNS
AFTER the switch -- this will get them properly registered with the
new addresses (and in the case of WINS undo the 'other' net.)

Make sure the clients use the SAME WINS server. It makes such
registrations more likely to work cleanly. Although WINS is in
some sense multi-mastered, there are ways in which it is not, and
these may cause trouble under some circumstance -- so just avoid
as much of that as possible.

Most of the problems will be with contacting the stations for things
like peer file sharing and personal web sites but not with the use
by that client of "real servers."