In Windows 7, you can link to many different types of
remote resources, including dial-up and broadband Internet services,
dial-up and Internet-based virtual private networking
(VPN), and the ethernet and wireless networking that are the subject of
this article. In Windows 7, all of these remote links are called network connections, and Windows 7 maintains a Network Connections window that lists all your network connections. Each network interface card
(NIC) attached to your computer gets its own connection icon in the
list, and you can use those icons to work with your network connections.
For example, you can
rename a connection, disable an unused connection, switch a connection
between using a dynamic and a static IP address, and find out a
connection’s Internet Protocol (IP) and Media Access Control (MAC)
addresses. In this section, you learn about these and other tasks for
wired connections.
Opening the Network Connections Window
You
do most of your work in this article in Windows 7’s Network Connections
window, and Windows 7 gives you two main ways to access this window:
In the Network and Sharing Center, click the Change Adapter Settings link in the Tasks list.
Select Start, type connections, and then click View Network Connections.
Figure 1 shows an example of the Network Connections window.
If you’ve previously
created a direct broadband Internet connection, a dial-up Internet
connection, or a connection to a VPN, you see icons for each connection.
However, you always one or both of the following two types of icons:
Wired—
These Ethernet connections take the default name Local Area Connection,
and you can recognize them by the RJ-45 jack shown with the icon. If
you have more than one Ethernet NIC installed in your computer, you see a
wired connection icon for each one (with subsequent connections named
Local Area Connection 2, and so on).
Wireless—
These connections take the default name Wireless Network Connection,
and you can recognize them by the green signal bars shown with the icon.
When you’re in the
default Tiles view, both wired and wireless icons show the name of the
network to which they’re connected (or the icon shows Disconnected
if no current connection is present) and the name of the NIC through
which each connection is made. (Details view shows you more data, such
as the current connectivity setting—such as Access to Local Only or Access to Local and Internet—and the network category.) If the network connection currently has a problem, you see a red X added to the icon (see Figure 25.16), and the connection’s Status field may display an error message (such as Network cable unplugged).
Renaming a Network Connection
The default network
connection names—Local Area Connection and Wireless Network
Connection—don’t tell you much other than whether the connection is
wired or wireless. Similarly, if your computer has two Ethernet NICs,
having connections named Local Area Connection and Local Area Connection 2 doesn’t give you much to go on if you need to differentiate between them.
For these
reasons, you might consider renaming your connections. For example, if
you have Linksys and D-Link routers on your network, you could rename
your connections as Linksys Connection and D-Link Connection. Here are
the steps to follow:
1. | Open the Network Connections window, as described earlier.
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2. | Click the icon of the network connection you want to rename.
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3. | Click Rename This Connection in the taskbar, or press F2. Windows 7 adds a text box around the connection name.
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4. | Type the new name and press Enter.
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Note
You use the
same rules for naming network connections as you use for naming files.
That is, the maximum name length is about 255 characters, and you can
include any letter, number, or symbol except the following: * | \ : 0 < > / and ?.
