Wired and Wireless Network - prioritise Wired?

blorg

Currently I have two networks, one wired and one wireless (802.11b). Wireless one is connected to the internet, using DHCP (with some fixed addresses) from a Netgear router on 192.168.0.x while the wired one is not connected to the internet and using fixed IP addresses in the 192.168.1.x range. I set it up this way so that I could force connections onto the wired network as when both wired and wireless were in the same address range I found it would apparently randomly use whichever connection it felt like (with disasterous performance consequences.)

Some of the stuff on the network has both wired and wireless connections, some is wireless only, some wired only.

192.168.0.1 - Netgear Router
192.168.0.2 / 1.2 - Shuttle PC/Server
192.168.0.3 / 1.3 - Notebook
192.168.1.4 - Dell PC/TV recorder
192.168.0.10 - Netgear MP101 Music Player
192.168.1.15 - Pinnacle ShowCenter Video Player
192.168.0.x (DHCP) - PocketPC
192.168.0.x (DHCP) - Notebook

Now, I'm thinking of trying to unite these with a wireless access point on the wired network. (It is not possible to plug the wired network into the router that is connected to the internet due to the location of the phone line.) When I do this we will be going to everything on 192.168.0.x. Anyone know how I can set a priority so that it will try to access local addresses through the ethernet adapter if it is connected before it tries on the wireless. Also any way of easily seeing which network adapter the traffic is going through would be great.

Any questions to make this more clear please ask away.

Wandering Dazed

To change the priority of the nics go to control panel -> network connection -> click on the advanced menu -> advanced settings and ensure the lan connection is first in the order. If you bring up the properties on both connections you should see that the traffic is routed through the lan connection.

spartacus93

Thanks for that info, I always wondered the same!