Interesting Question

My wife has a work (school) laptop which is docked . They have told her that there is nothing wrong with having it connect to her network via Ethernet cable and to also have the wireless card active (it also connects).

Are both connections active in this configuration? If so, which one has precedence or will network traffic pass thru on both? Are there any potential problems with this setup?

Thanks,
Harvey

 

AFAIK it will use one or the other. Not both at the same time...unless you Bridge them I guess. What OS is it?

 

She has XP Pro. If only one is used, what determines which one?

Thanks,
Harvey

 

Do a Start--> Run and type ncpa.cpl and hit enter. On the menu to the top click Advanced and then Advanced Settings. The Network Adapter to the top of the list is the primary one being used.

 

Thanks. I'll try that next time I get to her machine.

Harvey

 

or do a route print from command and check out the metrics, but thats a little more complex.

 

Any comments as to whether or not there is a downside to having both connections active?

Thanks,
Harvey

 

Usually there's no problem. Both are active, but only one is used at a time. You can't have two NICs on the same subnet at the same time. Here's a Microsoft article that explains how things work.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;175767

 

Thanks for the info.

Harvey

 

cool. I learn something new every day