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Is it possible to make Windows 7 connect to an available WiFi network automatically only if LAN is disconnected? The only option I see right now is that Windows connects using both LAN and WiFi. This is undesirable because my router limits the amount of total active connections and I would like to only employ one at a time.

Yanick Girouard
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gnobal
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  • You could see if changing the network metric. Windows will automatically use the network connetion with the lowest metric, so see if my [answer to this question on SU](http://superuser.com/questions/234258/automatically-prefer-ethernet-over-wlan/234265#234265) would help. – tombull89 Feb 29 '12 at 15:29

2 Answers2

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Nope. Linux, Mac OSX, FreeBSD, etc can all do this, but Windows does not have any built-in link aggregation capability. There may be 3rd party software that can make it work, but not just Windows.

Chris S
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    Thanks. Now that I know the name for this I was able to verify that indeed Windows does not support link aggregation using this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_aggregation ) – gnobal Feb 29 '12 at 15:19
  • Some laptops have an option in the BIOS to automatically disable the wLAN card when a LAN connection is present, mostly newer laptops. It still has the problem of disconnecting all active connections when you switch though. – Chris S Feb 29 '12 at 15:35
  • My IBM thinkpad could do this 3 years ago, but it was with their connection manager. – Basil Feb 29 '12 at 15:37
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It's not free but it's got a 30 days trial and costs about 8$ if you decide to buy it: Wireless AutoSwitch XPV

I don't know of any way to do it natively in Windows.

Yanick Girouard
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