I hate Microsoft because no matter how hard I try, Windows makes me look stupid. This Wednesday I was over at ERHS helping Team 53 get their FRC robotics development environment set up. This involved resetting the network addresses on a wireless router, where the driver station will be connected, and the wireless bridge that sits on the robot itself. To troubleshoot the setup, I wanted to alternate between using my laptop on wireless and directly connected to the router or robot.

Windows 7 would not let me configure the same IP address on both my wireless and my ethernet interface, even though I disabled the wireless adapter.

Shut up. What if I'm in the lab connected to a dozen test networks, and I want to quickly switch between them, and I want the same host address each time. Give me a break. If I do something stupid, and try to enable two interfaces at the same time, then go ahead and break my network. Don't even bother telling me; I'll know why.

Ok, so tonight I'm at home, on my normal wireless network, and I plug in a crossover cable to the camera I'm testing for the robot. A nice little private network with just two devices, my laptop and the camera. Boom. my wireless connection stops routing to the Internet. EXCUSE ME?!? What the heck is the problem here?!?

And that is why I hate Microsoft this week.