Both the wifey’s and my work laptops are sometimes used with the cable modem at home.
They’ve been set up with proxy servers at work, but at home these have to be disabled. To change this, you have to navigate through a few menus, then for some reason (something to do with the unholy alliance between Win2k and the LAN it cannot find?) some of the menu forms take a long time to load or display.
Is there some way to set something up (like a shortcut to a batch file) to that will more quickly change the “use proxy server” option?
You could use a different browser for the two different setups.
The Opera browser has a very convenient way to switch proxies on and off (F12 and one mouse click). I’m using Mozilla Firebird now, and it sure could use a easy proxy switch. IE is especially difficult.
It lets you set up and store all the parameters needed to connect your Windows box to any network (at least any I’ve tried).
If you’re already booted, it takes about three clicks and 10 seconds to launch MNM, select the new network, and switch. Or as you boot up, just select the network you want to connect to, and it comes up all set. A great product. For less then $40, it’s saved me hours of time (not to mention aggravation) over the course of a couple of years.
IBM notebooks come with software called Access Connections which works exactly like you want to. Otherwise, alternative browsers such as Mozilla allow profiles.
For IE, the “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings” Registry key controls whether the proxy server is used. If the ProxyEnable value is 1, it is enabled, 0 for disabled. After changing this value, you need to restart IE for the change to take effect. This suggests a quick-and-dirty way to get clickable proxy on/off shortcuts: export the Registry key in question to a file twice, once with the proxy on, and once with it off. (on my system when I tried it, each file was about 48K)Then, you can double-click the “on” REG file to activate the proxy, and the “off” one to deactivate it. Store them somewhere and put shortcuts to them wherever you like. Then it takes a total of only 3 clicks to switch the proxy on or off.
Obligatory disclaimer: playing around with the Registry can cause serious problems with your computer if you make a mistake. Don’t try this if you’re not sure what you’re doing.