WiSwitch 1.4
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WiSwitch 1.4

Free WiSwitch can be used to connect / disconnect from the internet
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aerDNA
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Wireless Zero Configuration (XP/2003) and WLAN Autoconfig (Vista/Win7) are services through which the operating system manages wireless network adapters. If you don't know what services are, they are a special kind of programs that generally perform some system function and have no direct interaction with the user but "quietly" do their job in the background. On computers with a WLAN adapter, the mentioned services enable connecting to wireless networks. But those services also scan your "wireless neighborhood" for available networks and they do it every 60 seconds, regardless of whether you are already connected to a network or not. As the average user connects always to a same home or office network, it is clear that this functionality is mostly unnecessary. Furthermore, it gives some users headaches, especially network gamers. The reason is, while the scanning is in progress, it creates a lag, that is, several seconds of increased latency which impairs "the responsiveness" of the connection. This may not be a big problem when surfing the internet or downloading files, but when it comes to network gaming, a latency spike can get you killed (in the game). XP users can solve this problem by stopping the Wireless Zero Configuration service and WiSwitch will provide them with a very simple way of doing that. Note that this will only eliminate the lag caused by WZC while your particular lag issue can have a number of sources. In Vista/Win7, stopping the WLAN Autoconfig service terminates the connection so WiSwitch will, unfortunately, be of no help with the 'lag' problem.
But WiSwitch has another practical application, which can be utilized by Vista/Win7 users. If you always connect to the same network, it's handy to set the connection to be automatic so you don't have to choose your network from the list every time. But this also means that, if the network is available, you computer will connect to internet as soon as Windows is started, and you may not want that. With laptops, this is not a problem, since they usually have a WLAN switch, but desktop computers just as usually don't. WiSwitch can set WLAN Autoconfig service startup type to Disabled, which means it will not be automatically started after booting; you will start it when you need it. Just to make things clear, the service startup type is a setting separate from the way you connect to a particular network; for example, the service can be set to Disabled and the 'XY' network to Automatic, so when the service is started, it will connect to 'XY' network. In this context, the aforementioned awkward property of WLAN Autoconfig service (stopping terminates the connection) turns into an advantage - WiSwitch can be used to connect / disconnect from the internet.

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