Win 11 not connecting to LAN. using wireless and unable to change

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Wife,  forgetting my advice to not, updated to win 11 on her Desktop Cistco PC.  Now is past date to revert to Win 10.  Although plugged in to Xfinity modem, the OS is using the wireless from the router modem,  Unclear to me how to simply change this.  And many important websites are blocked, e.g. bank bill pay, utilities, etc. The email provider is not. I made her call Microsoft Support.  They wanted lots of info about the computer, e,g serial number, etc,   The support person told her there was no wireless on her computer! And then hung up.   Is there a website Where some of these issues are addressed?  I’m supposed to be tech support here, but my limited expetise is with Win 10.  Anyone here have any advice foe me?  Will be gratefully appreciated.

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I had a Win10 machine that was stubbornly connecting to wifi rather than lan. I wanted to keep both available but had to change priority a few times to make it “stick”. Had to disconnect from wireless and I think forget it to finally get it right. Sorry foggy memory and it was a couple years ago.

1st, make sure in control panel your wired lan connection is available. It could be a driver issue. Then see if this may help you through.
https://www.thewindowsclub.com/change-network-adapter-connection-priority-windows

Never Say Never

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Open Settings, click on Network & Internet in the left-hand panel, and select Advanced network settings at the bottom of the right-hand panel.

On the Advanced network settings panel, Enable Ethernet and disable WiFi.

This will force it to use the wired connection.

 

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Have a look at this post here on AskWoody which describes how to change the network connection priority order so ethernet comes before Wi-Fi.

IMO it’s a much better method than ‘forgetting’ a Wi-Fi connection (i.e. deleting a Wi-Fi profile) or disabling Wi-Fi completely as it means Wi-Fi connectivity is still automatically available if ethernet is disconnected.

Hope this helps…

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Rick,

Nice post!

Here’s a little PowerShell script to simplify the listing and give instructions on making the changes.

Clear-Host

$GNIFArgs = @{Expression={$_.InterfaceMetric};Label="IFM"},
            @{Expression={$_.InterfaceIndex};Label="IFX"},
            @{Expression={$_.InterfaceAlias};Label="Caption"}

Get-NetIPInterface            | 
  Sort-object InterfaceMetric | 
  Format-Table -Property $GNIFArgs

"To change priority of any of the above:"
'Set-NetIPInterface -InterfaceIndex "IFX" -InterfaceMetric "New IFM"'
"Where:"
"  IFX    : THe InterfaceIndex (IFX) of the adapter to change."
"  New IFM: InterfaceMetric (IFM) is the priority of the connection,"
"           lower number higher priority!"

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

1 user thanked author for this post.

Rick Corbett

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On that machine I was referencing above, I had done that multiple times. Would never stick. After forgetting the wifi and connecting to the lan for a day I re-enabled and connected to wifi then back to lan. It has stayed as lan top priority since. Not sure why I had to jump through hoops with that machine as I didn’t have issues with the other 7 in same office????

Never Say Never

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RetiredGeek wrote:

Here’s a little PowerShell script to simplify the listing and give instructions on making the changes.

Excellent! But, come on RG, you can do better than that.

How about just showing the interface metrics for ‘Ethernet’ and ‘Wi-Fi’ and asking ‘Want to swap priority?’. I’m sure you can pipe and manipulate the Get-NetIPInterface results to show just these two network interfaces.

Go on… you know you really want to… 🙂

(I’m kidding, very gently. Even after nearly 3 years of tinkering with PowerShell, I still can’t get a handle on it. I can fight my way through AutoHotkey [usually] ‘cos it’s basically English… but PowerShell does my head in, even though I know it’s far more powerful for what I want to achieve delving into Windows’ innards. I’m a ‘Quick’n’Dirty kludger’, not a ‘geek’. 🙂

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Rick,

I’ll give is some thought but initial impression is it will take some work.

• Have to figure which IFM’s are not in use.
• Have to figure which items are the Ethernet & Wi-Fi as the captions are set by the user.

Example of the second bullet point:

IFM IFX Caption                       
--- --- -------                       
  2  19 Computer Mentor Wired         
  2  19 Computer Mentor Wired         
  3  15 Computer Mentor Wi-Fi         
  3  15 Computer Mentor Wi-Fi         
 25   8 Local Area Connection* 11     
 25  18 Local Area Connection* 2      
 25   8 Local Area Connection* 11     
 25  18 Local Area Connection* 2      
 65   6 Bluetooth Network Connection 3
 65   6 Bluetooth Network Connection 3
 75   1 Loopback Pseudo-Interface 1   
 75   1 Loopback Pseudo-Interface 1   

To paraphrase Kahn in “The Wrath of Kahn”

“He Tasks Me. He Tasks Me, And I Shall Have Him! I’ll Chase Him ‘Round The Syntax Of PowerShell, And ‘Round The Windows Maelstrom, And ‘Round Perdition’s Flames Before I Give Up!”

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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joltar wrote:

I’m supposed to be tech support here, but my limited expertise is with Win 10. Anyone here have any advice foe me? Will be gratefully appreciated.

Have you considered a clean install with Windows 10? The digital license for Windows 10 has already been stored on Microsoft’s activation servers so there’s no issue about activation… it’ll be automatic.

It’ll put you back into an OS environment that you are familiar with. If that’s something you would like to pursue then post back.

Hope this helps…

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My PC has both WiFi & Ethernet connections. I only enable one at a time.

I go into “Network Connections” and disable the current one and enable the other when switching, with right menu clicks and selecting from the context menu: Enable or Disable.

The shortcut I use to get to the Adapters aka “Network Connections” settings on Windows 10 is:
C:\Windows\explorer.exe “::{7007ACC7-3202-11D1-AAD2-00805FC1270E}”
Otherwise available in Network Settings as “Change Adapter Options”.

For some weird network situations, I have needed to toggle the network connection: disable, wait a bit, and then re-enable.

Windows 10 22H2 desktops & laptops on Dell, HP, ASUS; No servers, no domain.

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