Windows 8.x Wireless Networking Issues

One of the more useful features of Windows 7 that has been completely removed from Windows 8.x for no apparently decent reason is the "Manage Wireless Networks" Control Panel applet.  It provided you with a wealth of knowledge and gave you the ability to, as its name suggests, manage wireless networks.

So, with the demise of this useful feature, along came the Kerkia group with their WinFi application to return the functionality of this tool in a nice, usable interface.  It allows you to re-order, delete, import and export network profiles and it also allows you to change a network profile between Current User and All Users.  All User profiles will connect before any user has logged in to the computer.

In addition to this, there are some "netsh" commands you may well find useful if you like doing things via the command-line:



Showing Wireless Profiles

 netsh wlan show profile

- output will be something like:

Profiles on interface Wi-Fi:

Group policy profiles (read only)
---------------------------------
None
User profiles
-------------
All User Profile : SSID1
All User Profile : SSID2
Current User Profile : SSID3



Deleting Wireless Profiles

netsh wlan delete profile SSID2

- output will be something like:

 Profile "SSID2" is deleted from interface "Wi-Fi".



Exporting Wireless Profiles

To back up all Wireless Profiles
netsh wlan export profile folder="%UserProfile%\Desktop"

To back up all Wireless Profiles on a particular interface
netsh wlan export profile interface="interface name" folder="%UserProfile%\Desktop"

To back up a specific Wireless Profile on all interfaces
netsh wlan export profile "profile name" folder="%UserProfile%\Desktop"

To back up a specific Wireless Profile on a specific interface
netsh wlan export profile "profile name" interface="interface name"
folder="%UserProfile%\Desktop"

Note:

• Substitute profile name (SSID) in the command with the actual SSID network profile name that you want to export as a backup.
• Substitute interface name in the command with the actual name of the interface that the wireless network is on that you want to export as a backup.
• If you want to back up the Wireless Key (password), add "key=clear" after the profile "profile name" section in each of the above commands (needs administrator rights)

For example:
netsh wlan export profile "SSID1" interface="Wi-Fi" folder="%UserProfile%\Desktop"



Exporting Wireless Profiles

To restore a Wireless Profile for the Current User only
netsh wlan add profile filename="\path\to\file.xml" user=current

To restore a Wireless Profile for All Users
netsh wlan add profile filename="\path\to\file.xml" user=all


Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie