Fallback to second internet connection after internet access loss?

[pilau]

My computer has two network adapters connected to two different internet gateways. One is Ethernet and the other is WIFI.

The Ethernet connection is first on the access order list (if you don't know what I'm talking about, see the image attached) and the WIFI is second.

Today, the internet access was lost on the Ethernet connection, however internet access was still available on the WIFI connection. In spite of this, Windows and all other applications were sill trying to use the first connection, instead of switching to the one with internet access!

What I want to know is, why, for example, when only the internet access is lost on one adapter (i.e. the adapter is still connected, (has an IP) but no internet gateway or DNS server address(es) are available), Windows doesn't fallback to the other connection, which has internet access?

In the same sense; why can't Windows 7 divide outgoing connections between all internet-connected adapters, and utilize two separate bandwidths?

Thank you very much!

 

[2xg]

Hello,

If you'd like to utilize both ethernet and Wi-Fi simultaneously, setting up interface metric might help.
An explanation of the Automatic Metric feature for Internet Protocol routes

 

[pilau]

Thanks for your reply 2xg.

I read through the whole piece but it doesn't seem that this is what I'm looking for:

The Automatic Metric feature can be useful when the routing table contains multiple routes for the same destination. For example, if you have a computer with a 10 megabit (Mb) network interface and a 100 Mb network interface, and the computer has a default gateway that is configured on both network interfaces

And also

The Automatic Metric feature is configured independently for each network interface in the network. This feature is useful in situations where [...] you may want to manually configure the metric on one network interface, and enable the Automatic Metric feature to configure the metric of the other network interface. This setup can enable you to control the network interface that is used first in the routing of IP traffic.

I just noticed that the screenshot I took did not get attached here in the previous post. Windows 7 has a place for the exact setting in the bold paragraph above. Here, this time I made sure the screenshot is attached:

 

[2xg]

You may give it a try, I have given this suggestion to a few posters and it worked to most of them. You may always undo it if it doesn't work. Nothing wrong doing a trial and error.

 

[pilau]

Alrighty! Will try that out and report back with the results!