Manage wireless network profiles in Windows 8

 

 

 

 

If you need to change or delete a wireless connection profile, you can usually do it by right-clicking the network in the network list and choosing a command on the menu that appears. But there are some tasks that need to be done at the command prompt. Here's a table showing how to do the most common tasks.

Task		Instructions
Show all wireless profiles on the PC		At the command prompt, type: netsh wlan show profiles
Show security key for a profile within range		Press and hold or right-click the network in network list, and then tap or click View connection properties.
Show security key for a profile that's out of range		At the command prompt, type: netsh wlan show profile name=“ProfileName” key=clear
Delete a profile within range		Press and hold or right-click the network in the network list, and then tap or click Forget this network.
Delete a profile that's out of range		At the command prompt, type: netsh wlan delete profile name="ProfileName"
Move a network up in the priority list		Connecting to a new network and setting it to autoconnect will place it at the top of the list.
Stop automatically connecting to a network within range		Tap or click the network in the network list, and then click Disconnect.
Stop automatically connecting to a network that's out of range		At the command prompt, type: netsh wlan set profileparameter name=”ProfileName” connectionmode=manual

How Windows determines connection priority

Windows usually connects to networks in this order:

1. Ethernet

2. Wi‑Fi

3. Mobile broadband

When you connect to a new Wi‑Fi network, it’s added to the list, and Windows will connect to that network while it’s in range. If you connect to another Wi‑Fi network while in range of the first network, Windows will prefer the second network over the first one.

Mobile broadband networks are treated differently. If you manually connect to a mobile broadband network when there is a Wi‑Fi network in range, the mobile broadband network is preferred just for that session. The next time you’re in range of both networks, the Wi‑Fi network is preferred. This is because mobile broadband networks typically are metered.

If you want to force your PC to prefer a mobile broadband network over Wi‑Fi, tap or click the Wi‑Fi network in the list of networks, and then click Disconnect. Windows won’t automatically connect to that Wi‑Fi network.