I normally disable any not frequently used hardware in Device Manager such as the webcam, fingerprint reader, DVD-RAM, Modem, Firewire, PCMCIA adapter, and most importantly the wireless adapter. So far I only noticed that the computer boots up faster since it doesn’t need to load up the devices and most probably it could even prolong the battery life on my laptop. Many times I’ve seen people using their laptop connected to both wifi and LAN that is on the same router. Although this shouldn’t cause any problems because Windows routing table is smart enough to automatically detect and use the better connection, but it is still good to disable the unnecessary connection to avoid any possible dual interface routing issues. Previously I’ve tested the Windows routing table by connecting 3 different types of connection (3G, ethernet and wifi) on my computer and it puts 3G at first priority, followed by ethernet and then wifi.

If you normally have to switch between wifi and ethernet connection but find it a hassle to manually disable or enable the devices, here is how you can do it automatically.


Steve Wiseman from IntelliAdmin has written an intelligent vbscript that automatically disable wireless when Ethernet is available and vice versa. First you need to identify the name of the connection used by ethernet and wifi. Go to Control Panel > Network and Sharing Center > Change adapter settings.

Once you’ve identified both the LAN and wifi connection name, download the correct NetSwitch vbscript file according to your Windows operating system from the link below and save the file from .dat to .vbs extension.

For Windows 2003, Vista, 7, and 2008: http://www.intelliadmin.com/NetSwitch.dat
For Windows XP: http://www.intelliadmin.com/NetSwitchXP.dat

To put the wired NIC as first priority and the wireless NIC as secondary, type the following command at command prompt. This means that whenever the wired network connection is connected, the vbscript will automatically disable the wireless connection. If the wired network connection is unavailable, the vbscript will then enable the wireless connection.

NetSwitch.vbs “Local Area Connection” “Wireless Network Connection”

This script requires to be ran as administrator. According to Steven, the best place to run the script would be from a group policy computer configuration logon script because it will run as local system and have the proper permission to enable and disable network cards. You can also use the Windows Task Scheduler workaround trick to run the NetSwitch vbscript with highest privileges.

Other alternative for this NetSwitch vbscript are BridgeChecker and Wireless AutoSwitch which both are shareware. If you have a Dell wireless adapter, it would probably come with a “Disable Upon Wired Connect” feature or for HP laptops, some models comes with auto wireless disable feature called LAN/WLAN switching in BIOS.