I've looked into automagically enable/disable network connections before. Heres what I came up with.

First I aimed for the registry, it seems like disable a connection clears the NTEContextList of the interface and reduces a reference count (Yes!) to the interface. Enable it sets a unique hex counter on NTEContextList and increases the reference count. It probably does more that that, so I decided not to fiddle with it.

I decided to go for a solution using the Win32::GuiTest module and emulate a user (Me) doing it.

Here is my code, you'll probably need to modify it to match your icon positions and maybe increase/decrease the sleep values.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use Win32::GuiTest qw(SetForegroundWindow FindWindowLike GetWindowText
+ SendKeys);
use vars qw(@windows);

#- Check for open ncpa.cpl
@windows = FindWindowLike(0, "Network and Dial-up Connections", "", 0,
+ 1);

#- Close all open ones
for (@windows) {
    SetForegroundWindow($_);
    sleep 1;
    SendKeys("%{F4}");
}

#- Open a new one
system ("cmd /c start ncpa.cpl");
sleep 2;
@windows = FindWindowLike(0, "Network and Dial-up Connections", "", 0,
+ 1);
SetForegroundWindow($windows[0]);
sleep 1;

#- Now, navigate to the icon you want with right arrow keys
#- Mine is the second icon so I need only one keystroke
SendKeys("{RIGHT}");

#- Open the right klick menu and press enable/disable
SendKeys("+{F10}{DOWN}~");

#- Wait a while (enabling takes some time)
sleep 15;

#- Close window
SendKeys("%{F4}");
[download]

Good luck,

/brother t0mas

---

---

Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!

Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.

Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.

Please read these before you post! —

• How do I compose an effective node title?
• How do I post a question effectively?
• Markup in the Monastery

Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:

a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr

You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)

	For:		Use:
	&		&
	<		&lt;
	>		&gt;
	[		&#91;
	]		&#93;

Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?

See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.