ANNOUNCEMENT: Live Wireshark University & Allegro Packets online APAC Wireshark Training Session
July 17th, 2024 | 10:00am-11:55am SGT (UTC+8) | Online

Ethereal-users: RE: [Ethereal-users] Selecting an interface [identical NICs in wi n98SE]

Note: This archive is from the project's previous web site, ethereal.com. This list is no longer active.

From: Nicoson Dave <NicosonD@xxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 25 Jun 2002 09:33:01 -0500
Title: RE: [Ethereal-users] Selecting an interface [identical NICs in win98SE]

 
> On Thu, Jun 20, 2002 at 03:02:53PM +0200, Naszáli Zoltán wrote:
> > I can't select a valid interface in Capture/Start drop-down
> list.  My
> > Win'98 SE box connected to two network segment via two RTL
> 8139 cards.
> > All the two interface appears in the list -with same name-,
> but I cannot
> > select the second one (wich is the last element of the
> drop-down list).
>
> If they have the same name, this probably means that WinPcap can't
> distinguish between them, which means it can't open any of them other
> than the first one.

You are correct;  WinPcap cannot distinguish between the adapters if they have the same name.  Below is a helpful response from Gianluca Varenni from the WinPCap list:

Hi.

You answered to your question in your mail: under Win98 the names of the
adapters are NOT unique (under NT/2k/XP they are).

However, it is possible to modify those names by modifying some keys in the
registry:
    a. open the registry(regedit.exe)
    b. go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/[System]/CurrentControlSet/Services/Class/Net
    c. you will find some folders named 0000,0001,0002...; each one
corresponds
       to a network device.
       each of these folders has a subfolder named NDIS, which contains
       a key named "LogDriverName": it contains the names of the adapters,
       as shown by winpcap. Locate the two 0000/0001/....  folders of the
       adapters with the same name in winpcap, and change the LogDriverName
of
       one of them (for example from "rtl8029" to "rtl8029-b").
    d. close regedit and reboot.

This procedure should work (on my machine it does), HOWEVER, I do *not* take
any responsibility for this operation! Handling Windows registry is always a
possibly dangerous operation.
Let me know if it works.   [It does!  -DJN]

GV