Question about Integrated Wireless and LAN Connections

[RedChief]

Hello everyone,

I was hoping some of you might be able to help with a question I have.
I have a setup up of about 150 laptop users. There are docking stations for every body, so needless to say an existing LAN is in place. Recently we just added wireless to the same area that the LAN is and then some. So as to give the end user a little bit of freedom to move around if they like. Problem is, that when they are connected via LAN, the wireless NIC still gets an IP Address. I was wondering if any of you had any ideas of how to dictate that if there is a LAN connection there should be now wireless connection?

I know a simple answer would be "Turn off the wireless radio", but alas, at my place of employ, to have the end user be responsible for anything other than logging in is not an option.

I have however come across Metrics in the TCP/IP Properties of the local and wireless connections. If I set the LAN to 10 and the Wireless to 20, will that stop the wireless from getting an IP when the LAN is available?

Thank you in advance for any help you can give.

[M/Q]

Changing the metrics will not affect obtaining an IP addr, but it will change the paths that TCP uses to send and receive traffic. This article is a very good one and explains this in greater detail.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/columns/cableguy/cg0405.mspx

[RedChief]

Thanks M/Q.

So Metrics is not really the answer that I need. Does anyone happen to have any advice or suggestions?

[M/Q]

I guess, I am not sure of why you are concerned about that. If both adapters do not have an IP address the user would have to reboot instead of just undock.

It is my understanding that WinXP is smart enough to give priority to a wired connection when available.

[RedChief]

It's a concern right now because IP's are a little bit in demand. This should be fixed in the future, but how far into the future I can't say.

I see what you are saying about if they undock then they would have to reboot to get a new wireless IP. But at the moment we only want one running at a time, and they are both picking up IP's.

[M/Q]

If IP addrs are the problem, would it be possible to setup AP's on a separate VLAN or subnet as that should free up IP addrs.

You did not mention which docking station, but most have a built in network adapter and send the traffic over the docking connector, so any group policies or access controls setup on the OS would not apply to the docking station.