Two connections - which one works

One of my customers asked me this..... he has a Vista laptop with
built-in WL adaptor.

When he is in the office, he also has docking station which has a
wired connection to a USB WL adaptor (because it runs at higher speed
than the built-in 11g adaptor).

He's supposed to switch off the built-in, but the other day noticed
both said they were connected.

So our question is, with two connections, are they both used, or, if
not, which one will be active...

TIA,

JohnK

On 18/11/2008 19:57, John F Kappler wrote:
> One of my customers asked me this..... he has a Vista laptop with
> built-in WL adaptor.
>
> When he is in the office, he also has docking station which has a
> wired connection to a USB WL adaptor (because it runs at higher speed
> than the built-in 11g adaptor).
>
> He's supposed to switch off the built-in, but the other day noticed
> both said they were connected.
>
> So our question is, with two connections, are they both used, or, if
> not, which one will be active...
>
> TIA,
>
> JohnK
I can only tell you what happens with mine. If I run "route print" both
the built in wireless and the USB wireless have the same metric and
should have the same priority. However if I then run a speedtest I find
that no data is transferred via the USB adapter but all through the
built in wireless. I used vista to control the built in wireless and the
proprietary manager for the USB wireless.

On Tue, 18 Nov 2008 19:57:49 +0000, John F Kappler
<john@pceffect.co.uk> wrote:

>One of my customers asked me this..... he has a Vista laptop with
>built-in WL adaptor.
>
>When he is in the office, he also has docking station which has a
>wired connection to a USB WL adaptor (because it runs at higher speed
>than the built-in 11g adaptor).
>
>He's supposed to switch off the built-in, but the other day noticed
>both said they were connected.
>
>So our question is, with two connections, are they both used, or, if
>not, which one will be active...

By default, Windows gives connections with faster link speeds a lower
metric (higher priority), so a 100 Mbps wired connection would take
precedence over a slower wireless connection. The wireless connection
wouldn't be used unless the wired connection disappeared.

I'm making some assumptions about your environment and there are other
considerations for exceptional cases, but that's generally how it
works.

On Tue, 18 Nov 2008 19:57:49 +0000, John F Kappler <john@pceffect.co.uk>
wrote in <eq66i49o7kek18opijhcq32g990ut8626j@4ax.com>:

>One of my customers asked me this..... he has a Vista laptop with
>built-in WL adaptor.
>
>When he is in the office, he also has docking station which has a
>wired connection to a USB WL adaptor (because it runs at higher speed
>than the built-in 11g adaptor).
>
>He's supposed to switch off the built-in, but the other day noticed
>both said they were connected.
>
>So our question is, with two connections, are they both used, or, if
>not, which one will be active...

Only one will be used, the one with the lowest metric.
--
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