A week or so ago, I had to spend time with my computer at a friends’ place. In doing so, the friend hooked me up to their wireless network. Not a problem. However, now whenever I boot up, the machine starts scanning for local wireless, which I neither want nor need. I think it may -continue- to scan while I work (at least, that’s why I assume there’s a slow-down on my machine). What I need to know is, running windows xp, how do I get it to not even -start- looking for the things?
You can disable your wireless through the Network Connections folder from the Control Panel (or even from the start menu, but I prefer the folder since it’s easier to see what I’m trying to dis/connect). That way it will stop trying to find wireless connections when there isn’t one you want to join, but you’d have to go back an enable it if you ever want to join a wireless network.
You can also prevent it from automatically connecting when enabled by finding the link to “Change the order of preferred networks”. Usually if you right click on the wireless icon, select “view available wireless networks” then on the left side should be that link to change the preferred networks. There’s options in there to setup whether it automatically connects and to which networks it will connect in what order.
