What is my network connection?

[Guest]

I have a home LAN with a router to the Internet and I have a laptop with a
docking station. Things seem to work fine both docked and undocked but when
I'm docked, the taskbar icon seems to indicate that I'm on my wireless
connection. In the Network Sharing Center/Manage Connections/Status it shows
both my wired and wireless connection with both wired and wireless showing
Internet and Local.

The wireless is set to use a "preferred" network if available. I can't tell
which connection I'm actually using and the taskbar icon only shows the
wireless and not the wired like the Sharing Center.

How can I make sure I'm using the wired connection when I'm docked.

Any advise will be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Guest]

I believe by default if you have 2 network connections (wired/wireless) by
default Windows will use the wired.

To verify what connection you are actually using disable the wireless and
see if you still have a connection. If so, then your on your cable; vis
versa for the wireless.

 

[Robert L [MVP - Networking]]

By design, it should use the faster one and I assume it is wired. To confirm it, post the routing back here. To do that, run command line, type "route print >c:\routing.txt". Copy the routing.txt from C drive.

Bob Lin, MS-MVP, MCSE & CNE
Networking, Internet, Routing, VPN Troubleshooting on http://www.ChicagoTech.net
How to Setup Windows, Network, VPN & Remote Access on http://www.HowToNetworking.com
I have a home LAN with a router to the Internet and I have a laptop with a
docking station. Things seem to work fine both docked and undocked but when
I'm docked, the taskbar icon seems to indicate that I'm on my wireless
connection. In the Network Sharing Center/Manage Connections/Status it shows
both my wired and wireless connection with both wired and wireless showing
Internet and Local.

The wireless is set to use a "preferred" network if available. I can't tell
which connection I'm actually using and the taskbar icon only shows the
wireless and not the wired like the Sharing Center.

How can I make sure I'm using the wired connection when I'm docked.

Any advise will be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the recommendation. I can get on the network with either adapter
disabled. The task bar icon shows the correct network for either of them
when when only one is active.

When I have both enabled, the Network Center shows both as connected and it
shows the wireless as local and the wired as local and Internet. The task
bar icon says access is local and internet and it shows my wireless SSID and
the bar graph for the signal strength. It doesn't show the wired connection.

Is it just that the Vista task bar icon isn't working correctly?

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the recommendation. When I typed the command as you suggested, it
says access is denied.

Typing in just route print shows both interfaces but I can't tell which one
is being used in the IPv4 or 6 route tables.

 

[Michael A. Bishop \(MSFT\)]

The tray icon shows overall internet connectivity. If you're connected via
both wired and wireless, then both will appear. (Wired doesn't get signal
strength bars, obviously, but if your wireless is turned on you'll see the
bars for its connection.) Windows will choose the best path for traffic to
take -- usually the wired. A connection that was established over wireless
before docking would continue to go over wireless, I think, but new
connections would use the wired interface. Both interfaces show Internet
connectivity because, I would assume, both interfaces lead to the Internet.

If you want to dig deeper, as another poster suggested, you can see the
relative priority Windows is giving to the two interfaces by typing "route
print" at the command prompt; the top two entries (routes to 0.0.0.0) are
the default gateways -- paths to the Internet. The lower metric is the
route your system will prefer. The Interface column gives you the address
that connection would be from; use ipconfig to see which interface on your
system has which address.

 

[Guest]

OK ... thanks. The tray icon only shows the wireless connection's SSID and
that it's connected local and Internet.

ipconfig tells me that wired is connected to 192.168.1.5 and route print
tells me it has a metric of 20
ipconfig tells me that wireless is connected to 192.168.1.7 and route print
tells me it has a metric of 25

Does this tell me that wired's metric of 20 is preferred?

Thanks for the help.

 

[Michael A. Bishop \(MSFT\)]

That's correct -- your machine knows two ways to reach the Internet; all
else being equal, it takes the lower metric. Traffic should be going out
your wired connection rather than your wireless. If your wired connection
is removed (you undock), the other path becomes preferred.

 

[Guest]

Thanks again. I think I now understand. It just troubled me that the tray
icon shows only the wireless connection when I'm docked.

 

[Guest]

It's all very puzzling to me as well. I'm new to Vista and to my new Dell
laptop, but...what I find is that it is usually helpful to go to the network
area in control panel and if the wireless shows up, click disconnect. I'm
sure there must be a better way, but relying on Windows to make the selection
hasn't proven to be very dependable in my case. As far as the connection
being defaulted to the last connection state, that doesn't seem to work
reliably either.

 

[KSI..]

Finally, i just think you jave a special button to enable or disable the
wifi, fn+?

Or the other possibility is to change the preferred network connections
order, you have a special function in Vista for that, nut since you are using
7 now i don't think it will be a problem anymore