A local area connection is automatically created for each network adapter in your computer that is detected by the Plug and Play service. After a card is physically installed, it is detected by the Plug and Play service. Network and Dial-up Connections enumerates the adapter and populates the Network and Dial-up Connections folder with a local area connection. Because local area connections are dependent upon a network card being recognized in the computer, they cannot be created by using Make New Connection .
For the adapter to be detected and the connection created, the Plug and Play service, Network and Dial-up Connections service, and Remote Procedure Call (RPC) services must be started. All of these services start automatically, no user interaction is required.
If a local area connection does not appear in the Network and Dial-up Connections, there might be several reasons:
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The network adapter was removed. (A local area connection only appears if an adapter is detected.)
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The installed network adapter is malfunctioning.
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If your network adapter is a legacy adapter that is not detected by the Add New Hardware wizard or the Plug and Play service, then you might need to set up the adapter manually in Device Manager before you see a local area connection in the Network and Dial-up Connections folder.
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If the driver is not recognized, the adapter appears in Device Manager but you cannot see a local area connection.
If your network adapter driver needs to be updated, use the Update Driver feature in the adapters properties.
If your computer has one network adapter, but you need to connect to multiple LANs (for example, when traveling to a regional office), your local area connection network components need to be reconfigured each time you connect to a different LAN. However, you do not need to restart when you change TCP/IP or other connection settings.