Remove additional Network device profiles?

[Phoenixhunter]

For reasons unknown to me, Windows likes to retain the settings of the same network devices after you uninstall and reinstall them, such that in troubleshooting a faulty wireless card, I'm now on "Wireless Network Connection 7".

Is there any way to remove them so I can revert back to a non-numbered connection? It probably isn't hurting performance but I'm a bit anal about keeping my registry nice and clean.

 

[lockmac]

In network connections, just delete the ones that arent being used. If your wireless network connection is now at number 7, delete all the previous wireless network connections in the 'network connections' folder, then rename your current wireless one so the 7 doesnt appear. That should delete them from your system

 

[Phoenixhunter]

There are no other Wireless connections actually listed, is there a way to reveal 'hidden' network connections?

 

[thegorx]

I've been dealing with this lately if your talking about listings in Network Connections

you can find kind of what you looking for by searching the registry for

Local Area Connection

basically under

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Network

then clicking on subkey {4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} you'll see

Network Adapters in the right pane

then a subkeys under that will have a subkey named connection
which will have the connection number and the corresponding PnpInstanceID

I haven't actually tried to remove old connection listing so I can't really say if removing the subkeys under {4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} and the subkey listed in the PnpInstanceID line would work or wouldn't just cause more problem

I also don't know how good you are at restoring the registry if at worst case the system doesn't boot so I wouldn't suggest trying it yourself unless you know what you're doing or find a complete walk thru of this

perhaps this will help you find some more info about this

 

[thegorx]

Originally posted by: Phoenixhunter
There are no other Wireless connections actually listed, is there a way to reveal 'hidden' network connections?

you might have to remove them while connected
or perhaps in safe-mode it will show you

there is also a device manager shortcut that's suppose to show more but it still doesn't show everthing

%windir%\System32\Devmgmt.msc set DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES=1


also in the device manager try the view menu show all hidden devices