conflict between simultaneous use of wireless & hard wire connection

[wpshooter]

If using Windows XP laptops connected to a Windows 2003 LAN server, can having both the wireless LAN connection and the hard wire/ethernet connection active at the same time cause any possible conflicts/problems in running LAN based applications, installing or uninstalling LAN based applications or any other communications between the LAN and the laptop workstation or internet communications with the laptop ?

Let me know if you may need any further details.

I may have a followup question, depending upon your the answer to the above ?

Thanks for you help.

 

[JackMDS]

It is not a problem since they can mot be used for the same function at the same time.

 

[spidey07]

With windows XP and above it gives LAN connections priority over wireless. Depending on service packs of course. If you want to see issue the following command in a command prompt - "router print" and look at the metric value, lower wins.

 

[wpshooter]

That is what I sort of thought.

But the reason I ask is because we had some problems when trying to install some software to one laptop (which as it turned out, had both the wireless and the ethernet connection running at the time of the install) from the LAN server and one of our headquarters IT personnel said that this was probably the cause of the problem.

The installation was a series of several batch files that they had provided on our LAN to prep the workstations for the later installation of our new Engagement Manager accounting software.

Thanks.

 

[wpshooter]

Originally posted by: spidey07
With windows XP and above it gives LAN connections priority over wireless. Depending on service packs of course. If you want to see issue the following command in a command prompt - "router print" and look at the metric value, lower wins.

You say depending on the service pack - the service pack on the workstation or the server or both and at what level service pack does this become a non-issue ?

Thanks.

 

[spidey07]

don't know, don't follow it. In all honesty it's best to only have one network connection active at a given time. Windows still gets confused.

In all honesty the scenario you described "could" cause a problem, but it "shouldn't". The quotes are there on purpose.

 

[wpshooter]

Originally posted by: spidey07
don't know, don't follow it. In all honesty it's best to only have one network connection active at a given time. Windows still gets confused.

In all honesty the scenario you described "could" cause a problem, but it "shouldn't". The quotes are there on purpose.

Again I agree with your shouldn't because my theory is that when I was running the batch file installations for the user of this particular workstation that when I walked out of his office for a moment (and in spite of the fact that I had told him that I was only on batch file #4 of 6) that he closed the DOS window that the batch file was running in and therefore cut off that particular batch before it had run to completion.

Thanks.

 

[wpshooter]

Originally posted by: JackMDS
It is not a problem since they can mot be used for the same function at the same time.

Jack:

Do you still say that this is a non-issue in spite of SPIDY07's answer that says that Windows can be less than 100% dependable in this regard ?

Thanks.

 

[JackMDS]

Metrics can be set to provide a stable priority, http://www.ezlan.net/metrics.html

However, on a second thought, it might be that under some "creative" server setting it might end up confusing the client.

 

[wpshooter]

Originally posted by: JackMDS
Metrics can be set to provide a stable priority, http://www.ezlan.net/metrics.html

However, on a second thought, it might be that under some "creative" server setting it might end up confusing the client.

Thanks.

 

[wpshooter]

Is there any feature in Windows (other than the little warnings given in the systray) that would warn a laptop workstation user at the time of booting the machine when both the wireless connection and the ethernet connection are active, so that they would be properly warned to disable one or the other ?

If there is not any feature built into Windows for issuing such a warning, is it possible to write some type of batch file or script that would warn the user of this situation ?

Thanks.

 

[wpshooter]

No takers ?

 

[Starrx05]

Okay, so you're connected both by wire and wirelessly on same subnet and login to your domain? You get 2 IPs and other PC can ping them but at higher level, only one is used for applications (the first one assigned to your lappy, like a stack, first in first out) So if you look up active users on your Win 2003 server, you see that user logged in only once. However, why should you want this 2 IPs situation? If you're on 2 subnets and wand to do some testing/routing between 2 LANs then I could understand. Most laptops have feature that disable the hardware wireless adapter if it see an ethernet cable plugged in and re-enable it back then your cable is unplugged.

 

[wpshooter]

Originally posted by: Starrx05
Okay, so you're connected both by wire and wirelessly on same subnet and login to your domain? You get 2 IPs and other PC can ping them but at higher level, only one is used for applications (the first one assigned to your lappy, like a stack, first in first out) So if you look up active users on your Win 2003 server, you see that user logged in only once. However, why should you want this 2 IPs situation? If you're on 2 subnets and wand to do some testing/routing between 2 LANs then I could understand. Most laptops have feature that disable the hardware wireless adapter if it see an ethernet cable plugged in and re-enable it back then your cable is unplugged.

How do I tell if these particular laptops have the feature you mention that will automatically disable the wireless if the ethernet is plugged in ?

Thanks.

 

[Starrx05]

It's often in the BIOS's power management section. After you turn on your laptop, it says something like "Hit F1, F2 or Del key to enter setup..." You can get into the BIOS that way.