How do you manage wireless networks in Windows 8?

Answer 1

Wireless networks are an important part of almost everyone’s computing experience. This makes the reason why Microsoft removed the option of easily viewing and managing your wireless networks in Windows 8 a bit of a mystery. When you go looking for it where it used to be, in the network and sharing center, it is no where to be found. Search a little more, and you will discover that it is not anywhere on your computer.

There is a wireless network list near the clock on your desktop, where you can see what networks you are connected to. It is possible to right-click these connected networks to view connection properties, where you can see the security settings and delete the network. You can also disconnect from here.

However, to access your full list, you will need to use the command prompt. The command prompt, as always, is an elegant and straightforward interface - as long as you know the commands.

They are as follows:

• To access the command prompt, press Win-R. Then, use the following commands, depending on what it is you want to do.
• To view all the wireless profiles on your computer, type - netsh wlan show profiles
• To find the security key for a profile that is not currently in range - netsh wlan show profile name=”ProfileName” key=clear
• If you want to delete a profile that is not in range - netsh wlan delete profile name=”ProfileName”
• To stop the autoconnect function for a network that is not currently in range - netsh wlan set profileparameter name=”ProfileName” connectionmode=manual

Microsoft has a pretty detailed

explanation

of all of this over at their website. As you can see, the command prompt is used here to access networks you are not currently in range of. For those you are close enough to, just use the network list discussed above.