Windows is easy?

In linux, if you need to schedule a particular ethernet interface to enable and disable at a certain time, you set a cron job to start the interface when desired, and another to stop it. That's just the solution tha I know about from my experiance with Linux. the fact is, Linux actually has a command that enables and disables your ethernet connection, among other things.

Windows is quite a different story. For a client whose backups we just picked up, we need to enable a second network card during the night, and disable before work starts in the morning. Not so easy. Sure you have ipconfig....a very powerful command on the windows platform...as long as want to know about your interface configuration. If you search really hard, you find netsh. From what I can see, it's main use is with command line firewall rules. It does have a place that looks like it'd help. You can export the configuration of your interface, reset the configuration, clearing it out, and then later import the configuration back in. Sounds like it might work, not exactly elegant or anything, but it might work. In practice...it does a fine job of exporting out your config, a fine job of resetting your confi...oh wait...I still have internet...oh look at that, ipconfig says i have an ip address...but then again, netsh and the GUI network connections says i have nothing...What exactly is this reset command for then!!!

Now you have to realize, that feeling of utter accomplishment was starting to cover me as I thought I'd found the solution to this, and then everything came crashing down around me like the little pig's brick house after the wolf discovered TNT.