General question -- How does Windows decide whether to use wired or wireless when both are present? 2

[jsteph]

Hi all,
Just an academic question that's been bugging me:

I have a wireless connection and an ethernet port on my laptop at my desk. I leave the wireless on most of the time because I unplug the ethernet when going to a conference room, for example.

So my question is--when I'm at my desk and both are active, let's say I'm copying a 1 gig file to a server. While it obviously would make sense that the OS use the faster connection (usually--but not necessarily--the wired connection)--how does it make this decision?

And suppose I unplug in the midst of this file transfer? I haven't tried this yet, but would it just know to start sending through the wireless when the wired is unplugged, without missing a beat (or byte)? And does it ever use both simultaneously, but for different tasks?

Thanks for any enlightenment,
--Jim

 

[jimbopalmer]

It uses them in order they were created, usually this means it favors wired.

If you unplug in the middle of a single transfer it will fail, but the next transfer should succeed. If your protocol retries automatically, you may not even know it failed and reconnected.
If the wired is on one network, say 192.168.1.x with a default gateway of 192.168.1.1 and the wireless is on 192.168.2.x, then it will use wireless to get to any address on 192.168.2.x but use wired for 192.168.1.x and for any network connected to 192.168.1.1 (often the internet)

Windows dislikes having two default gateways.

I tried to remain child-like, all I achieved was childish.

Tsar of all the Rushers

 

[Ali147gta]

It's all about route metrics

read here... all will be revealed

http://blogs.technet.com/b/clint_huffman/archive/2009/04/19/windows-prefers-wired-connections.aspx

iMachiavellian - think dissident

 

[jsteph]

Jimbo,
Thanks very much that was concise and makes sense.

Ali,
Thanks, I'll check out that link and see what's revealed...
--Jim