Auto-Connect to whichever network is running

[syphon]

I'm running the release version of Parallels on my Macbook, with WinXP as my guest OS.

I use Bridged Networking to give WinXP internet access, and a proble arises between taking my MacBook home and to work. See, at home, I use a wireless network (so my MacBook uses the Airport card for its internet connection). At work, however, I plug it in to a land line (so the MacBook uses the default eth0 for its internet connection).

Do you see my problem? OSX automatically switches between the two, so my connection to the internet is pretty transparent. The guest OS, however, is hard-coded to one adapter or the other. This forces me to shutdown my guest OS, configure the appropriate setting Parallels, and then re-start the guest OS.

Is there any way to implement an option to default to whichever network connection OSX is using?

 

[kalisphoenix]

Would it work if you added another virtual network interface? I think Windows is smart enough to handle that.

 

[Andrew @ Parallels]

syphon,

Guest XP should get new connection without reboot. It could take some time (20-30 sec) but it should work without reboot.

PS: Ofcourse you should use DHCP for this. With static IP this won't work.

 

[syphon]

Andrew,

It doesn't quite seem to work that way.

I just brought my laptop to work. At home, WinXP was configured to use bridged networking through the airport adapter. Here at work, the computer is connected to a landline, so WinXP needs to be connected to the standard network adapter.

Windows still "connects" to a network, but it doesn't obtain an IP and has no connectivity. I think the aforementioned solution of creating a 2nd network adapter would work, but that seems a bit hokey to me.

 

[serv]

syphoon,

If you set VM to bridge to 'Default Adapter' you should be just fine. You may have unrelated problems on different networks however. But if you can boot XP set to 'Default Adapter' on both networks, then waking a suspended VM should also work.

BTW, what do you mean by 'Windows still "connects" to a network, but doesn't obtain an IP'?

 

[johnboy]

syphon, we saw a similar issue in some testing (Wired works but unable to move to a wireless network without changing config). We were able to get our systems working when switching from wired to wireless easily. Now it works just like a native system would.

First. Check and make sure your config is set to use "Default Adapter" and not specify en0, or en1
After you have made that check when you move from wired to wireless wait 60 seconds and if you are not on the new network then do a release and renew in XP.

If that does not work then try this next step as this is what resolved a repeatable issue on several systems. Delete the network card from device manager. Then use Device Manager to rescan for hardware changes. Let it detect the replacment NIC in XP. That should do the trick.
We found sometimes the NIC was set up to be a 10mb card and had the issue of not being able to go from wired to wireless.