Windows – Is it possible to have both Wired and wifi connections to the Internet at the same time

internetnetworkingwindows 7wireless-networking

Update : (19/07/13) If I yank the ethernet cable out (to put it back in again) to force my laptop to recognise the wired connection, my entire laptop freezes. Only hard reset — power off and power on, is able to fix this. Closing the lid, Ctrl+Alt+Del…. nothing works! Somebody has any idea on this behaviour?
End update

I am running Windows 7 Home Premium Sp1 64 bits on Toshiba Laptop (Atheros LAN and Broadcom wifi). I have a broadband connection at home and at any given time, my laptop connects to the Internet with the wifi.

Once it establishes the connection, I am unable to make the computer use the ethernet for connecting to Internet. I have to use the Fn+Fx keys to physically disable wifi before Windows even thinks of using the Wired connection. Usually this does not happen automatically either. I need to plug/unplug the cable several times, make the machine to sleep/wakeup, etc, sometimes in combination before Wired connection is activated.

Often, after Wired is finally setup, if I enable wifi, both connections show as "connected to Internet"!

Question is, is it possible to have both Wired and Wireless connectivity to the Net at the same time? If so how?

  • I don't have a CISCO router, don't intend to buy one. I have my ISP provided Teracom T2-B-Gawv1.4U10Y-BI model for connecting to the Net.
  • I have read up on using "Metrics" to assign "weights" to connectivity as recommended by many Microsoft MVP sites, but the responses in those threads make it clear that the method is very much "hit-and-miss". So, please suggest something else than the "Metrics" approach. Thanks.

Thanks in advance.

EDIT-I: I put my machine to sleep a while ago. Now, after wake-up, both Wired and Wireless show "Connected to Internet" once again. However, the strange thing here is, the laptop must be put to sleep before the Wired connection activates itself like this. Otherwise, it does not connect. Any other thoughts, in light of this?

EDIT-II: Scratch my above post (i.e., EDIT-I). We are back to the old behaviour of only one connection being used at any one time…. 🙁

Best Answer

You can change the order, in which Windows connects to different network adapters, to do this go to the Network Connections window, there

  1. press Alt
  2. select Advanced > Advanced connections
  3. open the Adapters and Bindings Tab

There you can change the order of the network adapters, in your case, try placing your LAN connection to the top of the list, this should cause windows to use the braodband Ethernet connection when it's available and only go via wireless when not.

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