[CS-FSLUG] Winbooks: Wifi vs Ethernet

[Ed Hurst]

On Fri, 10 Jun 2011, Cia Watson wrote:

>> Back in the days of XP dominance, this was not an issue. XP laptops
>> are like Linux, in that whatever network is available is the one it
>> will use. Vista and Win7 laptops resolutely refuse to recognize
>> ethernet. It's not even an option in the networking dialogs. I've dug
>> through the various config dialogs and have yet to identify why this
>> is.
>
> The only experience I've had with Win7 is when I've remotely installed
> some software for a customer. Since this software had to get to the
> internet we'd usually have to create an exception on the firewall. So
> the first thing I thought of in relation to your query was possibly it
> had something to do with firewall settings? Or drivers. ?

That's what I would have thought. The drivers are installed and working;
the ethernet port shows up in the hardware manager. The firewall never
seems to have anything other than the defaults, but in every case, all
the laptops act as if there is no ethernet port. People without a clue
using their new laptops out of the box can easily get the wifi to work,
but none of them have ever gotten ethernet to work, nor have I.

To be honest, I'm not well versed in the Windows firewall, but I've not
seen anything which indicates to me it applies to this problem.

I am even offered a chance to set up a login based LAN connect (such as
PPOE, DSL, etc), but not one for DHCP. It's as if some system default
sets a priority by which standard ethernet LAN is ignored if any wifi is
present. I've always had to use my laptop to configure routers because
it willingly grabs any network connection I give it. Something changed
with the defaults when Vista was released, because this never happened
under XP. They've apparently kept this with Win7.

Ed Hurst
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