Wireless and CAT5 network working well together.

[C Kelley]

I have an office network and I'm going to be adding wireless to supplement
the wired network. I have a question on if laptops are connected to the
wired network but don't have their wireless connections disabled how can I
be sure they are using the wired network? I changed the connection order
under advanced settings so the wired is above the wireless but is that all I
do? Is there any way to tell?

If a user is copying a large file over the wireless and then plugs in the
wired does it transfer over to the faster connection? How does it all work?
Or do we just trust that MS is doing the best thing?

Tx

 

[Steve Winograd [MVP]]

I have an office network and I'm going to be adding wireless to supplement
the wired network. I have a question on if laptops are connected to the
wired network but don't have their wireless connections disabled how can I
be sure they are using the wired network? I changed the connection order
under advanced settings so the wired is above the wireless but is that all I
do? Is there any way to tell?

If a user is copying a large file over the wireless and then plugs in the
wired does it transfer over to the faster connection? How does it all work?
Or do we just trust that MS is doing the best thing?

Tx

The surest way to control which connection the computer will use is to
enable the one that you want to use and disable the one that you don't
want to use.

If both are enabled and connected, XP's "Automatic Metric" feature
will choose a connection based on their rated speeds, as described
here:

An explanation of the Automatic Metric feature for Internet Protocol
routes
http://support.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?id=299540

That will normally choose a wired Fast Ethernet connection over a
wireless 802.11b or 802.11g connection. If automatic selection
doesn't do what you want, you can manually assign metrics to the
connections:

1. Open the Network Connections folder.
2. Right click the desired connection.
3. Click Properties | Internet Protocol (TCP/IP).
4. Click Properties | Advanced.
5. Un-check "Automatic metric".
6. Enter a number between 1 and 9999 for the "Interface metric".
--
Best Wishes,
Steve Winograd, MS-MVP (Windows Networking)

Please post any reply as a follow-up message in the news group
for everyone to see. I'm sorry, but I don't answer questions
addressed directly to me in E-mail or news groups.

Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Program
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com

 

[C Kelley]

thanks for the info, I did some tests and it looks like the auto mode doesn't
work well at all, I had my laptop plugged into the wired and connected to
the wireless network for about 5 min and I then started to transfer a large
file from a server, I checked my networking in the task manager and the
wireless connection was at 45% usage and the LAN was at 0, I then disabled
the wireless connection and the transfer failed, it didn't bounce over to
the other available connection. I guess I will try putting in the TCP
metrics manually and test some more. But so far it doesn't look too good.

 

[Jack \(MVP-Networking\).]

Hi
I am not sure that you followed Steve's advice to the letter.

Here you have the same thing with a picture,
http://www.ezlan.net/metrics.html

Jack (MVP-Networking).

 

[C Kelley]

Yes you're right I hadn't yet manually defined the interface metric, but
according to this doc http://support.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?id=299540 a
wired connection which is a 100Mbits should be set to 20 and a wireless of
54Mbits should be set to 25 which would take care of my problem. I'm not
looking forward to setting manual metrics on 100+ Laptop. I wish XP would
work properly.

I have not set and tested manually but I will do so, and post my results
here. But windows XP is broken in this way as according to the KB what I
said below shouldn't have happened.

 

[C Kelley]

As I thought it doesn't work well with manual metrics set If I'm using
the wireless connection and then plug in a wired connection, it keeps using
the wireless. BTW I have my wired connection set to 10 and my wireless set
to 50!



I connected to the network using the wireless connection starting copying a
large file... I then canceled the file and plugged in the wire, waited and
then started copying another large file and under my "Networking" in the
task manager it showed my wireless at 45% and nothing on the wired... I then
waited 5 minutes thinking it may take a while but no go; all traffic keeps
using the wireless card. Why can't things just work!