How To Manage Wifi Networks In Windows 8

A funny thing happened after a recent move – after setting up my wireless router in a new apartment, no thing how I tried, I couldn't modify the name of the device's wired network connexion on any of the Windows viii machines physically fastened to it. Puzzling? Very.

This went for weeks and I'd regularly return to trying to fix it, only when the answer isn't blindingly obvious and every sane try to find one doesn't work, I tend to requite up later on a while. It's kind of like New Tomb Raider logic: can't get past the large bad wolf? Well, screw this game, I'1000 playing something else. In other words, if the hours fly past and I have no progress to show for it, it's time to motion on, and maybe come dorsum to it after.

To make a long story brusque, I brought this router with me from a previous household and the "names" it bore (SSID and Ethernet) were unique to that household, and thus needed to exist changed.

The "Service Prepare Identifier" is like shooting fish in a barrel. The router now has a cheeky moniker inspired by my cat (don't guess, he's a cool cat):

If I connect to the router via WiFi, the connectedness information technology makes will be called "SmoothBGuac", and if I change the SSID, it will be reflected appropriately, on any fastened devices. If I connect to the router via Ethernet (good old Cat5) for the first time with a Windows 8.1 PC, information technology names the wired connection according to what the SSID is set as, and that's information technology. If I alter the SSID over again, the wired connexion is all the same whatever it start connected as – with no obvious manner to modify information technology.

My "large" PC is my productivity machine – it'southward the typical, noisy, black monolithic box, two-screens, big keyboard kind of setup. Whenever possible, this machine is connected to the router via old school Ethernet. (The router is a Netgear WGR614. The firmware is not upgradeable and leaves much to be desired Simply it is reliable and information technology works.) Since a wired connection is stable, secure, and since my PC's motherboard doesn't have a lot of room for expansion, it frees me up from having to have a dedicated wireless adapter.

If I accept to apply a wireless connection – say for testing or screenshots – then I have one of those simple USB Wi-Fi adapters I can plug in and I'thousand proficient-to-go.

Naturally, How-To Geek was interested in figuring out how to force Windows to rename the wired connectedness in the almost non-subversive (not reinstalling Windows or creating a new user contour) manner as possible. And then we put our heads together, and afterwards some excavation, we discovered a few things: it's not incommunicable to do this, in fact it'southward fairly easy, but it isn't obvious and shouldn't arm-twist then much head scratching.

Here's what nosotros're talking most

Networking computers together hasn't always been as uncomplicated every bit information technology is today. In fact, less than a decade ago, it could be quite irksome and when Windows 95 debuted, it was nearly unheard of to have a "home network". Near households didn't have computers, and if they did, it was a big beige box that sat on a desk (or side by side to one) with a large CRT monitor that weighed 50+ pounds. And, if the calculator was even connected to the Internet, it was through a modem — a very deadening, slow, modem.

Point is, networking was hard and it didn't actually become simple until networking components became integrated onto motherboards, operating systems adjusted to brand it nearly seamless, and wired/wireless routers became affordable. Now pretty much everything has a network adapter and everyone has a "network", even if information technology is just a glorified gateway to the Internet.

But, getting back to our quandary, if you click on the wired network adapter in the taskbar's arrangement tray, y'all can see that we are connected to "MrKittyNet" – that is to say, this system's Ethernet adapter (Eth0) is physically connected to the wireless router, otherwise known to it as "MrKittyNet". Windows apparently assumes the SSID of this router if this is the first time it connects to it via Cat5 cablevision.

For example, hither'due south our wired adapter in the desktop command console and the tooltip on the connection icon in the taskbar system tray.

Click on the system tray icon, and it shows up this way in the "Networks" panel too:

So, whenever the reckoner is plugged into this particular wireless router – a regular everyday Netgear device that y'all can pick up at a local computer store or off of Amazon – the connection assumes the name "MrKittyNet" and retains information technology fifty-fifty subsequently the SSID is changed.

The router isn't the reply. Nosotros couldn't make any change to it that so affected the connection name. The closest setting that seemed promising was the "Device Name" on the "LAN Setup" tab in the "Advanced" settings:

But all this does is proper name the device, which shows up in the Network as the gateway. Note hither, it is named slightly differently for comparison's sake.

Okay, it was a long shot but worth a attempt, and since renaming the SSID doesn't piece of work either, it has to be something nosotros tin alter on the operating system.

Et tu, Networking and Sharing Center?

The control panel, "Networking and Sharing Center" seems like our best bet because it'due south such a unproblematic thing. The first thing we investigate is "change adapter settings".

Nosotros take some options here, the about promising being "rename this connexion", but all this does is rename the adapter (currently Eth0). And why is the connection referred to as "Status"? Regardless, nothing hither works.

Having established that "Eth0" (the network adapter) has nothing to do with what the bodily connection to the router is chosen, it was time to practise some Googling.

Alas, poor Windows seven! Nosotros miss you!

Honestly, we utilize Windows viii.ane because it's stable and secure. Information technology performs well on cheap, older hardware and is fully compatible with all the gazillions of applications and games in the sprawling Windows universe. Only, at the same fourth dimension, nosotros sorely miss Windows 7 sometimes. Chief among what we miss about Windows 7 is the power to view your wireless network history and "forget" (delete) quondam networks yous'd previously connected to.

We don't want to dwell, and to be fair, you can forget wireless networks in Windows 8.1 also just it's not about equally unproblematic as information technology was in Windows 7, which provided users with a graphical history, accessible from the networking panel. Oddly plenty, Windows eight.1 regresses even further from Windows 8, which allowed you to right-click on whatever in-range wireless network in the "Networks" pane and "forget" it.

Windows viii.1 forces you have to apply the control line to do this, which makes one wonder why Microsoft hates us?

Outset first by doing a search for "cmd" or hit "WIN Fundamental + R" and execute "cmd" from the run dialog:

And so from the command line type "netsh wlan evidence profiles":

At present blazon "netsh wlan delete profile name=ProfileName".

For instance, if we want to delete "dlink-BADF" nosotros'd type "netsh wlan delete profile name=dlink-BADF" and that wireless network is purged from the history. But, this merely applies to wireless networks. Note, "MrKittyNet" isn't listed, and so this expressionless end, while useful, is still a dead cease. So, now what?

Expect to the Windows Registry!

The respond lies within the Windows registry, and in order to fix the problem, we have to utilize the dreaded Registry Editor – a tool so powerful and terrifying that is can completely screw your system across recognition. Obviously, standard registry editing disclaimer applies: if y'all're going to muck about in your registry make sure you lot know what you're doing, and that you dorsum stuff upward. We are not responsible if disaster strikes.

That said, this is a pretty uncomplicated gear up. Either search for "regedit" or run information technology from "WIN KEY + R". Annotation, you volition need administrator privileges to do this.

The quickest manner is probably just to search (F3) for the name of the wired network yous want to alter. We find three instances of "MrKittyNet" in the registry. Ii of them, as we run across in the screenshot, are keys. You lot can leave these be; they will not have whatever impact on the proper noun of the connection.

The occurrence of "MrKittyNet" that we do want to change is found hither:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\NetworkList\Profiles

Within the "Profiles" key volition likely be two more keys. In the following screenshot, yous tin come across that the Information value of the string "ProfileName" is what we need to change.

Right-click on the "ProfileName" cord equally shown higher up and select "Alter". Let's go alee and input the name of our wireless SSID so our connections "match":

Click "OK" and restart or but log out and log back into your reckoner, and you now see our wired network finally displays the proper noun we wanted, "SmoothBGuac":

Why is this so difficult?

Many questions immediately arise from this feel. Bated from the intrinsic value of this registry hack – it is kind of a niche problem that most users won't take to bargain with – the biggest question that comes to mind is, why is information technology so difficult to practice? And immediately following, why does information technology take to exist washed in the first place? Why doesn't the wired connection's name modify co-ordinate to what the SSID is? Or, why doesn't the networking pane merely show the proper noun of the adapter "Eth0"? Why can't nosotros merely only rename it without getting into the basics and bolts of the organization?

Obviously the router does play a office at some point. When a new system connects to it, the wired adapter takes on the SSID's label. And it's piece of cake to imagine connecting to a more robust (read: expensive) network infrastructure device might resolve this problem, but it's besides easy to imagine that information technology might not.

Have you e'er experienced this type of result? What did you exercise to set it? Have you a meliorate workaround than diving into the registry? Sound off in the comments!

Source: https://www.howtogeek.com/176148/how-to-%E2%80%9Cforget%E2%80%9D-a-wired-or-wireless-network-in-windows-8.1/

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