Default Network Connection

qball15j · Post by **qball15j** » Sat Aug 12, 2006 3:11 pm

Hi Guys,
I have a question kind of related to VMware, let me explain my configuration. I have a Compaq laptop which will be running a base OS of Windows XP Pro running a VMware session of Windows Server 2003 using bridge mode to the ethernet connection on the laptop. Server 2003 will be used to network boot clients through PXE, it will be handling the following services, DHCP, DNS, RIS, and of course AD, I can get that part working alright. The problem I'm running into is I would like to be able to connect to the Internet via another source with XP through either WiFi or a Verizon broadband card. XP wants to use the ethernet connection for some reason which of course being isolated won't work. Is there a way to set a default connection or some sort of priority?

qball15j · Post by **qball15j** » Sun Aug 13, 2006 8:38 pm

I found a solution to my problem, it involved changing the automatic metric option under advanced TCP/IP properties to a specified number. Basically Windows would use the ethernet connection by default to route TCP/IP traffic because of its faster connection speed, for any normal situation this would be fine but for me running a VM session to distribute network services to a isolated network I needed Windows to use a 'slower' connection method on the laptop to access the internet at the same time.

Below are links for future reference.

Forum post discussing similar situation.
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/arch ... pport.html

MS Knowledge Base Article explaining Automatic Metric.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.as ... -us;299540