Switch between network connection settings using NetSetMan

Posted on December 17, 2008 at 5:45 am

Are you someone who has to travel a lot? Maybe between several of the company’s offices across the world? Each time you visit a different place, you have to manually configure your network settings? Wouldn’t it be easier to just manage several network profiles and switch between them instantly?

NetSetMan is a free program that allows you to create up to six network configurations, so that you don’t have to waste time changing your network configuration every time you connect to a different network.

Using the program, you can configure each network profile with many different settings so that you can get to work instantly rather than having to restart your computer, get an IP address via DHCP, configure your email client, configure a printer, map network drives, etc. You can do it all using NetSetMan.

Here is a list of all the settings you can configure for each network you are connecting to:

IP address
Subnet mask
Default gateway
DNS Servers
WIN Servers
Workgroup
DNS Domain
Computer Name
Network drives
Default Printer
SMTP Server
Host file entries
Scripts (VBS, BAT, etc)

This is not simply a manager for the IP settings that you have in the Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) Properties dialog for each network adapter, it also takes care of a lot more, like making sure you can setup the correct SMTP server, run any necessary startup scripts, add the necessary printers, and map the necessary network drives for each network you connect to.

Once you load up the program, you can easily capture all of the network settings that you are currently connected to by going to Profile and clicking on Get all current settings.

It will automatically figure out which network adapter has an IP address and will pull all the information it can about the network, including DNS servers, PC name, workgroup, printer, and more. You should then go to Profile and click on Save as Favorite to save the settings. If you right-click on the tab, you can rename it to something other than SET0, SET1, etc.

Now if I want to use all of these network settings, I would just click the Activate button at the to right and all of the network settings will be changed!

You’ll get a little status window to make sure everything was changed correctly. I have an error in mine because I was testing and didn’t put any value for the IP address.

Overall, it’s a great way to manage several network profiles at once with different network configurations and easily switch between them. Enjoy!

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