Everyone knows the importance of backups and I am not here to harp on that. One thing you may want to consider, however, is having a backup of your router settings in the form of screenshots.
Hypothetically, assume your router got fried by either a power surge, inadvertent user error or a freak occurrence. Do you know what all your settings (ISP info, IP configuration, port forwarding, wireless configuration) are? If you know, they are easy to rebuild on the same or a different router, but if not you have to hunt all these down again which can be time consuming.
To avoid this hassle, just take quick screenshots of all your router configurations and tuck them away somewhere. This way you can easily restore them in the event you ever have to replace your router.
The PCMech.com weekly newsletter has been running strong for over 8 years. Sign up to get tech news, updates and exclusive content - right in your inbox. Also get (several) free gifts.
Very Very Important! I have worked in Tech Support before and I can tell you guys that I have had so many people calling up just to get their router configured! Having it snipped really saves a lot of time!
Probably one of the best time savers going. Makes it easy to switch back when playing with changing DNS servers, as well as swapping out routers. Also, you know you’re on firm ground when talking to your ISP about dis functional connections.
This is great info, but the reason that I clicked on the link was to get an explanation of HOW to do it. I can certainly understand how important it is. For those of us who are not particularly tech savvy, it would be nice to get a step by step process by which we could accomplish this important task.
Just open your router control panel (check your router manual if you don’t know how) and the open Word (or another program you can paste screenshots into).
Go to each configuration page in your router where you have made changes and paste a screenshot into Word.
Agreed. This is a must.
Alternately, a lot of them now allow creating backups of the settings. Most of these just output XML, so even if you’re new router isn’t the same, you can pluck your settings out of the XML file.
But when they don’t have that…screenshots it is.
Using screencaps for this type of thing is an essential skill to have.
Are these the pertinent settings?
Wireless Name (SSID) = ….
Encryption Method = TKIP
Encryption Key …………….
Usually not. Typically your wireless connection software will autodetect these.
With the exception of your password not be autodetected.