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When I dock my Windows 7 laptop, I want it to prefer the wired ethernet connection over WiFi.
This is a pretty straightforward thing to do on my Mac - I just reorder my network preferences, and it "does the right thing." I just can't figure out how to achieve the same thing on my Win7 laptop.
So, when I'm docked, it connects to WiFi, and then fails to connect to servers on the local wired network. How do I fix this?
jkooker
Posted 2011-02-18T19:42:43.050
Reputation: 1 347
115
It's on Windows 7, but it's pretty well hidden.
Go to Control Panel -> Network and Sharing Center -> Change adapter settings -> The hit Alt to get the menu and choose Advanced -> Advanced Settings.
Then you can re-order your connections in that list.
Although Windows should already automatically prefer your wired over your wireless connection. It chooses what adapter to use based on the lowest interface metric, and a wirelesss connection should have a higher metric than your wired. Run route print from the command prompt to see that.
shf301
Posted 2011-02-18T19:42:43.050
Reputation: 7 582
Didn't work for me - I had wired at the top and it was still preferring the wifi. Leeroy Jenkins' answer below (check "Connect to a more preferred network if available" in wireless properties) fixed it. – aucuparia – 2015-04-23T09:06:20.497
23This solution didn't work for me. I've ordered my connections: (1) Local Area Connection, (2) Wireless Network Connection. When I connect to the public WiFi network, I can't access internal sites. When I disconnect, I can. It still seems to be preferring WiFi. – jkooker – 2011-02-18T23:59:18.993
Does your wired and wireless connections both have a default gateway set (check via ipconfig)? Multiple, different, default gateways will cause routing issues. If that's the case then you could probably fix you issue by adding a static router via the route command. We'd have to know your IP address setup and the addresses of the server's that you are trying to connect to to help you with that. – shf301 – 2011-02-19T04:30:32.890
it's perfectly legal to have multiple default gateways; it's the norm. only one will be used, but the others are still there in case one of the interfaces disappears (unplugged cable, wireless turned off) – Michael Lowman – 2011-02-19T05:22:26.110
True, the problem is when the different default gateways don't have the access to the same networks, which is jkooker's case. See his comment to your answer. In his case changing default gateways changes which network is accessible. That was the context I was thinking in. – shf301 – 2011-02-19T14:41:51.430
Metrics are definitely the problem. route print shows that the problem occurs when both interfaces have the same metric (20). I've already ordered my connections (per above) - how else can I change these metrics? – jkooker – 2011-02-24T17:19:05.713
3
Use the instructions at the end of this KB article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/299540/en-us
– shf301 – 2011-02-24T18:54:26.207Thanks so much for this. What I can't understand is, why is this option so well hidden? (And how did you even find it?) – Kyle Strand – 2013-07-26T14:37:33.190
28
pulsarjune
Posted 2011-02-18T19:42:43.050
Reputation: 1 242
The "Adapters and Bindings" tab doesn't appear for me, only "Provider Order" – Attila Szeremi – 2016-12-30T18:14:14.280
@AttilaSzeremi I'm not sure why. But are you a local admin on the machine or a member of the Network Configuration operators group – pulsarjune – 2017-01-02T09:32:46.153
yes, it's my own PC at home – Attila Szeremi – 2017-01-02T15:19:07.010
18
Go to Control Panel -> Network and Sharing Center -> Change adapter settings -> Then 'Right Click' on the Wireless network and select Status Then click Wireless Properties and make sure that if you have it set to connect when in range that it is also set to connect to Connect to a more preferred network if available.
leeroy jenkins
Posted 2011-02-18T19:42:43.050
Reputation: 181
1not available on Windows 8 – beluchin – 2014-10-23T11:31:35.797
3At last - in all the posts I've read about this problem (ongoing for years!) this is the first time I've come across this solution - and it works !!!! – wotney – 2014-11-19T15:16:58.450
LAN was already ordered at the top of the connection list, and had the lowest metric, but still wasn't used when wifi was available. Changing this setting finally fixed things for me on Windows 7. – Rintze Zelle – 2017-01-27T15:39:59.463
Actually I solved the problem by simply selecting static ip but not specifying the default gateway on the interface that I don't want to use the internet traffic on. – David Okwii – 2017-11-04T14:52:04.157
13
Two things: first, you can add a metric to each interface to specify that one is better than another. Using the GUI, go to your network connection's properties, TCP/IP, Advanced, uncheck Automatic metric, and fill in the appropriate number. Since the metric represents a cost, Windows will automatically use the interface with a lower metric if it can't decide. This KnowledgeBase article describes the feature you're disabling.
Second, you shouldn't ever have a problem that requires one interface to be used over another. If both interfaces are the same network, then you'll always want the fast one. If they're different networks, then routing tables will automatically send packets out the proper interface to reach the network they belong to.
Perhaps you have two physically separate networks with the same IP block? This is a misconfiguration, and you should fix it.
Michael Lowman
Posted 2011-02-18T19:42:43.050
Reputation: 768
1The problem with metrics I had, was related to the creation of an Hyper-V Virtual Switch attached to a wireless network adapter. In this case, the metrics are incorrectly low for the 'Wireless Virtual Switch' which made Windows always choose it, instead of the 'Ethernet Virtual Switch'. – Pablo Montilla – 2015-03-10T12:54:19.130
This is at work, so the wired network has access to internal sites, and the wireless network doesn't. – jkooker – 2011-02-18T23:15:47.167
1ok, i'll still argue this is a configuration issue, but not one you can solve at the source. so just give your wireless interface a higher metric, and the wired network's default gateway will be used. again, route print helps. I have two interfaces, one with a metric of 20, the other 10. The default gateway (dest 0.0.0.0, mask 0.0.0.0) used will be the one with the lowest metric. – Michael Lowman – 2011-02-19T05:19:39.000
This solution worked for me, it seems. – Peter Jaric – 2012-12-17T09:07:03.090
1This worked for me, but I had to mess around with it a bit.
I changed my Wired connection metric to 10 and Wireless connection metric to 20. When I used route print, it showed the Wired as 250-300 and the Wireless to 20-30 each time. To get around this, I just set each to the extreme. Wired = 1, Wireless = 999. I now get the proper order. Thanks! – Lyrical – 2014-02-19T09:39:31.857
2
Kevin
Posted 2011-02-18T19:42:43.050
Reputation: 21
4This isn't available for all adapters. – Logos – 2016-10-17T19:34:54.067
1
If you have a wireless switch on your laptop, you may want to turn that off. Another thing you can look at is whether your ethernet port is operational in the device manager. You can also set this up through your internet options as well.
w7pro
Posted 2011-02-18T19:42:43.050
Reputation: 692
1turning off wifi works, but is a hacky solution. – jkooker – 2011-02-18T23:58:42.567
1
I got it working by setting the metric setting to 10 for wired and 1000 for wifi, all the other suggestions I found didn't work.
Morbia
Posted 2011-02-18T19:42:43.050
Reputation: 111
Confirmed. It works – Junior Usca – 2019-07-15T16:24:06.000
1
Simple way to disable the wireless is windows button+X, turn off wireless. Repeat process to turn it back on.
Kiyotaka
Posted 2011-02-18T19:42:43.050
Reputation: 19
0
My problem was that DHCP was not enabled for my LAN Connection - ran the troubleshooter, it turned it on and all is well now.
AVH
Posted 2011-02-18T19:42:43.050
Reputation: 101
0
i had a similar problem at home when i ran an ethernet wire to my computer after using wireless for a long time. my wifi was set to connect automatically, even though i had an ethernet connection.
my solution:
not exactly the same but someone might find this usefull.
hopethishelps
Posted 2011-02-18T19:42:43.050
Reputation: 1
You could try this, I use it on my computers. Disables Wifi adapters when any ethernet nic is connected and reenables them when network becomes unavailable, works when multiple wired and wireless nics are present. Good luck.
– sean_m – 2016-04-01T23:02:41.940With windows I've always used IBM Access connections, which would now be Lenovo Access Connections. But this could only be installed on Lenovo Hardware. Thus try the answer to this question: http://superuser.com/questions/214427/thinkvantage-access-connection-alternative Maybe you could even use the Access Connections Software? http://www-01.ibm.com/common/ssi/cgi-bin/ssialias?infotype=AN&subtype=CA&htmlfid=897/ENUS107-708&appname=lenovous&language=en
– Darokthar – 2011-02-18T19:53:30.427This is answered here: enter link description here
– CodeMonkey – 2012-08-22T22:55:28.540