Vista seems to use the DHCP gateway when set to use a manual entered 2

[twicki]

I have just upgraded to a vists laptop. My network has a default gateway which restricts internet access but we also have a second gateway that allows direct access. On XP if i wanted to use the direct access I would set my network card to use dhcp and then in advance I would manually add a gateway which would then use my direct access to the web but on vista it seems to use the dhcp gateway even when I have set this manually. If i overide DHCP it works fine sho my guess is Vista uses DHCP differently.

Can someone Help

 

[chipk]

Not sure if this command is available in vista, but from a command prompt do a "route print". It may be that the first, "restricted" gateway has a lower cost than the second, "unrestricted" gateway. If that's the case, you can use the route command to change the cost of these routes. Just see "route /?

 

[WhoKilledKenny]

ChipK has the right suggestion.
For some reason in XP you are not able to use a combo of a static gateway and a gateway assigned by dhcp.
You would not see two defualt routes (0.0.0.0) in the routing table. This is why it worked for you before. Your static assigned gateway took precendence over the one assigned by dhcp.

But, In Vista if you have a gateway assigned by dhcp and a gateway manually entered in tcp/ip, both default routes will show up in the routing table with different metrics. What you want to do is assign a smaller metric to the route you want to use. This can be done on the dhcp server or the static assigned gateway in tcp/ip - in your case sound like the static.

After you do a route print, as suggested, make a note of the metrics for the routes. In TCP/IP -> advanced, reconfigure your static gateway with a smaller metric.
You can do this with the route command as well.

 

[twicki]

Thanks Guys, I was reasdy for throwing Vista through the Window, sometimes microsoft need to think about these things when they release a new operating system. One other question where on the DHCP server can I set the metric for the gateway

 

[chipk]

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/columns/cableguy/cg0903.mspx

See this article under the bold heading: The metric of the default route.

I've never altered this, and I would be extremely cautious. If you have a few PCs that need this alternate gateway with a lower metric, I would set those manually, or else script the change (vbscript or netsh) rather than messing with your entire DHCP scope.

 

[WhoKilledKenny]

I have not used this so test before deploying.
It is option 033 Static Route Option - Destination/router address pairs, in priority order.