Windows XP will not release IP address on cable when unplugging it

22 Sep 2006 9:46 PM

mheinle

Hello,
I am having a hard time figuring this one out. I have several Dell
laptops all different models with different NIC Cards running Windows
XP sp2. When the user unplugs the cable to go to a meeting or some
situation where they are wireless XP retains the hard lines IP address
and does not switch to the Wireless card. Therefore, the network
becomes unavalable until you do an ipconfig /release /renew to get the
machine to realize there is no longer a cable plugged into it. It
displays that the cable is not there but it still tries to use the
cable.
Any help would be greatly appriciated. My only solution as of yet is
to just tell them to reboot the machine when they get to the meeting.
By doing that XP sees no cable and gets no IP and uses wireless, this
process should be automatic.
Thanks again,
Mark Heinle

23 Sep 2006 12:56 AM

AJR

If by cable you mean a cable modem - many cable companies assign "static" IP
addresses. Consider the "alternate configuration" option.

<mhei***@gmail.com> wrote in message
Show quoteHide quote

news:1158961603.424377.285360@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Hello,
> I am having a hard time figuring this one out. I have several Dell
> laptops all different models with different NIC Cards running Windows
> XP sp2. When the user unplugs the cable to go to a meeting or some
> situation where they are wireless XP retains the hard lines IP address
> and does not switch to the Wireless card. Therefore, the network
> becomes unavalable until you do an ipconfig /release /renew to get the
> machine to realize there is no longer a cable plugged into it. It
> displays that the cable is not there but it still tries to use the
> cable.
> Any help would be greatly appriciated. My only solution as of yet is
> to just tell them to reboot the machine when they get to the meeting.
> By doing that XP sees no cable and gets no IP and uses wireless, this
> process should be automatic.
> Thanks again,
> Mark Heinle
>

25 Sep 2006 4:14 PM

mheinle

No I do not mean cable modem. This senario is in a corprate
environment using HP Gigabit switches. The problem seems to occur on
all of the laptops I have tested it on. Everything is set up DHCP so
it should work. When we were using Windows 2000 pro you could have
both the wireless and NIC connected at the same time then simply unplug
the NIC and the machine would use the wireless. Now with XP when I
unplug the NIC and do an IPCONFIG the NIC IP address still exist and
therefore is what the machine is trying to use to conect to the
network. Once I release and renew the NIC IP gets zero's and the
machine uses the wireless. I need it to transfer smoothly from one to
the other wihout me having to do a /Release /Renew.

Thanks again for any help.
Mark Heinle

AJR wrote:
Show quoteHide quote

> If by cable you mean a cable modem - many cable companies assign "static" IP
> addresses. Consider the "alternate configuration" option.
>
> <mhei***@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1158961603.424377.285360@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> > Hello,
> > I am having a hard time figuring this one out. I have several Dell
> > laptops all different models with different NIC Cards running Windows
> > XP sp2. When the user unplugs the cable to go to a meeting or some
> > situation where they are wireless XP retains the hard lines IP address
> > and does not switch to the Wireless card. Therefore, the network
> > becomes unavalable until you do an ipconfig /release /renew to get the
> > machine to realize there is no longer a cable plugged into it. It
> > displays that the cable is not there but it still tries to use the
> > cable.
> > Any help would be greatly appriciated. My only solution as of yet is
> > to just tell them to reboot the machine when they get to the meeting.
> > By doing that XP sees no cable and gets no IP and uses wireless, this
> > process should be automatic.
> > Thanks again,
> > Mark Heinle
> >