ethernet and wireless network at the same time?

Question

I have a win11pro system with both ethernet and wifi.

Because the ethernet is always connected for the fastest connection, I have to manually connect to my wifi to be able to use my printer which is in another room.

Is there a way for windows to connect both the ethernet and wifi at startup automatically? If i disconnect the ethernet cable the wifi does connect automatically.

I've tried AI for help but this time I need a human.

thanks.

***moved from Windows / Windows 11 / Internet and connectivity***

Answer 1

Hello,

By default, the network card or network priority of Windows 11/10 is as follows:

Ethernet (LAN) > Wi-Fi (WLAN) > Cellular Network

When connecting to multiple wired networks, the faster the link speed, the higher the priority

The above conclusions are based on two important concepts and the working mechanism of Windows network:

Hop: In computer networks, a hop is a value assigned to a specific network card IP route, indicating the cost of using the route. The lower the hop value, the higher the network priority.

Automatic hop: When the Windows routing table contains multiple routes to the same destination, the system selects the priority network through the automatic hop function.

I recommend that you open the PowerShell command as an administrator to specify the network connection priority. First execute the following command to view the detailed information of each network card.

Get-NetIPInterface | Format-Table -AutoSize

The main focus is on the following columns:

InterfaceAlias ​​- NIC name

IfIndex - NIC index number

InterfaceMetric - NIC metric number

Execute the following PowerShell command to modify the Wifi NIC priority so that its metric remains the lowest among all NICs.

Set-NetIPInterface -InterfaceIndex "10 " -InterfaceMetric "15"

Note: The NIC index number and NIC metric number should be modified according to your actual environment.

Best regards

Zunhui