Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
■
Note
You can also enable or disable a network connection using the Device Manager applet, or from the
Network Connections status icon in your system tray if you've enabled it.
Using a Command-Line Interface
The following command will disable a particular network adapter in a Windows Server 2003
computer. This command uses the
devcon.exe
utility, which you can download from the Microsoft
website from KB 311272.
Devcon.exe
requires the value of the
PnpInstanceID
REG_SZ
key
found in the
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Network\
{4D26E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\
<Interface GUID>
\Connection
Registry key
referenced in Recipe 1-21.
> devcon -r disable PCI\VEN_14E4&DEV_1677&SUBSYS_01791028&REV_01\4&1D
7EFF9E&0&00E0
How It Works
The reasons for enabling or disabling a network interface card are numerous. If you have unused
NICs installed in a Windows Server 2003 computer, you can disable the ones that are not in use
to simplify the configuration of your server. You might also want to temporarily disable network
traffic while restoring files, performing a disaster recovery operation, or attempting to trou-
bleshoot a hardware issue on the server.
The
devcon.exe
utility is a command-line equivalent to the Device Manager GUI, and it is
freely downloadable from the Microsoft website. Devcon is a powerful utility that can enable
and disable devices, update device drivers, and list the hardware resources that are being used
by a particular device. But the power of devcon also means there is a potential hazard in using
it: since you are able to enable or disable multiple devices at once through the use of the
*
wild-
card, you need to be careful not to disable the wrong device, or more devices than you intend
to. You can read the help information for devcon by typing
devcon help
at the command line.
1-23. Configuring a Network Bridge
Problem
You want to configure a network bridge on a Windows Server 2003 computer. Using a network
bridge allows the Windows Server 2003 server to connect multiple LAN connections together,
enabling communication between them without requiring additional or third-party router
hardware or software.
Solution
Using a Graphical User Interface
1.
Open the Network Connections applet.
2.
Select the connections that you want to include in the network bridge.
3.
Right-click the connections and select Bridge Connections.
