Wireless lockdown

October 31, 2006 6:27 AM

How do I force a machine to connect to only one of a number of available wireless networks?

I have a desktop in the upper story of my house that gets it's feed from a wireless router in the basement. My neighbor has a wireless router too. Sometimes, my wireless desktop connects to the neighbors router rather than my own. How do I force it to connect to only my router and never to anyone elses?

posted by cosmicbandito to computers & internet (4 comments total)

Not sure what OS you're using, but here's the process for XP. It's pretty easy:

Control Panel
Network Connections
Right click on the wireless connection, select properties
Click on the "Wireless Networks" tab.

This has a list of all the wireless networks you've ever connected to. I travel a lot with my laptop and this list is a better indication of where I've been than stuff like passport stamps.

Anyways, either delete everything but your home network from the "Preferred networks" list, or you can view their properties, and on the "Connection" tab uncheck the "connect when network is in range" check box.

If the system is connecting automatically without your ever taking any actions, that might mean that something other than windows is managing wireless networking (probably software that came with the wireless interface) and you'll have to figure out the similar procedure with their software, or switch to windows-managed wireless networking.
posted by mragreeable at 6:48 AM on October 31, 2006

Once you do the above...
Your router should have an option for MAC filtering. Enter your computer's MAC and enable filtering.
posted by Mr. Gunn at 6:53 AM on October 31, 2006

If you're on OS X:

Go to System Preferences -> Network
Double click the Airport interface
Under the list of preferred networks, you'll see "Options" - click that.

Change the preference for "If no preferred networks..." to something more appropriate (I use "Keep looking for recent networks").

I also unchecked "Automatically add new networks to the preferred networks list", because if I'm trying to random hop on a point, I may not want to reconnect to it automatically.
posted by Remy at 6:59 AM on October 31, 2006

thanks all....this is exactly what I needed.
posted by cosmicbandito at 7:22 AM on October 31, 2006