In Windows XP SP2, when you double click on the wireless network connection icon in the tray it shows activity in packets. How do I change this to bytes, kilobytes, megabytes type thing.
Not a fan of packets.
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In Windows XP SP2, when you double click on the wireless network connection icon in the tray it shows activity in packets. How do I change this to bytes, kilobytes, megabytes type thing.
Not a fan of packets.
I believe the information comes from the network card driver, if the driver (or card) only supports reporting traffic sent/received in packets then that is what you see.
The Network Connections service just dumps this updated counter from the card driver - if it were to track number of packets and convert to bytes it would slow the system down a lot, as a packet can contain 576 to ~1492 bytes so it's not a simple conversion.
You would in effect be doing a permanent network sniff just to get that basic info.
Ok Paul, thanks for this looks like I will have to make do.
does windows not report it correctly with its monitor program
extract from ms kb:
1. Click Start, click Run, and then type perfmon.msc in the Open box.
2. In the Performance window [edit: click 'system monitor' on the tree] , right-click the right pane, and then click Add Counters.
3. Under Performance object, choose 'Network Interface'.
you should get a list of the ins and outs of the adapter pick the ones you want info on and click add
you can turn the graph off under, right click -> properties, if you just want raw data
Thanks Purple, never even knew about perfmon.msc. You deserve a merit mark or something!
check the post agian i had to edit it twice :)
I only see bytes per second on my machine?
The "activity" of the network connection shows cumulative data sent and received since the NIC was last enabled.
indeed it does show bytes per second, oh well maybe not that useful then, you can however retrieve this information using a the Win API if you wanted to write a program that added up the bytes per second, this wouldnt be too difficult. Also i THINK you can make new objects with 'start->run->wbemtest' but you would need to read a tutorial about this program as i have never used it because its a little scary and have had no need to :).