Hi I am currently trying to configure a Windows 7 Professional 32bit system with dual Network Interface Cards (NICs) for use in a highly available/duplicated network. Typically when we do this in Linux we can "bond" the NICs. I would use either "active-backup" or "broadcast" depending on the network architecture. In this case I want the equivalent of "Broadcast" mode. NOTE I am not trying to increase the bandwidth, nor do I want to bridge the NICs (This introduces loops which would require a variant of Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) which introduces yet more complexity and causes significant traffic/delays when the STP topology changes). So 1. does windows 7 have some native support for these functions? 2. If not does anyone know of a robust solution? (Open source is fine) Thanks Luke

Hmmm, it seems that there is not native support. It follows the Win XP model where "teaming" is done in the driver layer. Unfortuantely the drivers are provided by the manufacturers of the network cards such as Broadcom or Intel. You must have their H/W before the S/W will install. The problem with this is I am testing using a mixture of VMware virtual machines running on a PowerEdge server and real H/W. (It is not physically practical to have all the H/W as it would not fit in the space available.) The VMs have their own network cards (that emulate Intel) however the Intel S/W does not recognise them and hence it does not install... It would be really nice to find a product agnostic driver for a virtual teaming device. Does anyone know of such a thing? This would simplify the configuration management for the system as a whole and allow robust testing. The closer the test system is the actual system the better the testing! It appear that Intel has a mode on their driver (AFT) that will team Network cards from other manufacturers but you must have at least one of their cards installed. It could be just mixed models from Intel but I heard a rumour... e.g. The following was extracted from http://www.intel.com/support/network/sb/cs-009747.htm >>> snip <<< Adapter Fault Tolerance (AFT) Allows mixed models and mixed connection speeds as long as there is at least one Intel PRO server adapter in the team. A 'failed' Primary adapter will pass its MAC and Layer 3 address to the failover (secondary) adapter. All adapters in the team should be connected to the same hub or switch with Spanning Tree (STP) set to Off. >>> snip <<< FYI - http://www.broadcom.com/docs/support/ethernet_nic/Broadcom_NetXtremeII_Server_T7.0.pdf