Routers

[aekyall]

Not sure where this rightly resides.

A question from someone who's had to rapidly move from XP(H) to Windows 7 and seems to have lost a bit of flexibility in the process!

With XP(H) I had an external modem which, by right clicking on the twin screens on my task bar, allowed me to disconnect my computer from the internet whenever I wanted to work off-line. Getting back on was as easy as clicking on a desktop short-cut I'd set up to make the internet connection.

Now I'm on Windows 7, I've had to have a router as it wasn't possible to run the modem with the system. My problem is that I don't seem to be able to disconnect the router, to allow me to work off-line, without physically switching it off. My question is: Is there a software based way of disconnecting (or closing) the router and them connecting it again as required?

I'm aware that I can run Internet Explorer and mail off-line, but I quite often want to work on documents and spreadsheets without being on-line.

Grateful for any advice/ideas.

Thanks.

[StuartR]

Since this is in the hardware forum, how about the obvious hardware solution.

You could simply disconnect the Ethernet cable from your computer when you want to work offline, and plug it back in again when you want to use the Internet.

[JoeP]

If you go to Control Panel | Network and Interner | Network and Sharing Center | Change Adapter Settings you can create a shortcut on the desktop for your network adapter. If you right click on the shortcut you should see an option to disable the adatper. Once disabled a right click should display an option to enable the adapter.

Joe

[StuartR]

Or for a software solution

From the Network and Sharing Centre, go to Change Adapter Settings, right click on your local area connection and choose disable.

Edited to add
Joe beat me to it, but I will leave this here so you can see the screen shot.

[aekyall]

StuartR and JoeP - Very many thanks, exactly what I was looking for. (one each!)

[BobH]

Since this is in the hardware forum, how about the obvious hardware solution.

You could simply disconnect the Ethernet cable from your computer when you want to work offline, and plug it back in again when you want to use the Internet.

Ah, Stuart! But what if it's a wireless router? With a built-in adapter?

I'm glad I haven't been forced into Windows 7 if the system tray icons disappear there. I make frequent use of them for all sorts of controls including closing the wireless link, starting AV software functions, audio control, et al.

Have these truly been taken away by Win7?

[HansV]

Windows 7 still has the notification area/system tray, and you can have all kinds of items there, such as a volume or audio control, your antivirus console, etc.

It's just the network icon that has become less usable - it is not animated as it was in Windows XP. But of course, clever people have recreated the XP icon for Windows 7 and made it available for download.

[StuartR]

The Windows 7 system tray icon for the network has a right click menu for disconnecting wireless and VPN connections, but this doesn't let you disconnect wired Ethernet connections.