Showing posts with label How to Delete Wireless Profiles in Windows 8. Show all posts
Showing posts with label How to Delete Wireless Profiles in Windows 8. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

How to Delete Wireless Profiles in Windows 8

tip_primar-100011253-galleryHow to Delete Wireless Profiles in Windows 8

Missing in Windows 8 is the ability to view and delete all wireless profiles from your PC.  For some unknown reason Microsoft removed that feature which is very problematic if you ever need to edit a saved profile or delete one.

I recently had an issue with a wireless access point that had a hidden SSID.  I had to manually setup the connection but I forgot to check the box to connect even if the network is not broadcasting. So I was able to connect the first time but all other attempts failed because the network would not show up on the new wireless charm list. When I would try to re-add the profile again using the manually create wireless screen it would fail because there was another wireless profile with the exact same name.  Since Microsoft tore out the GUI t delete and edit profiles, I was stuck.

After some research I found that there is a command line utility that will let you delete profiles.  To use that follow these steps:

  1. Open up an administrative level command prompt.

  2. Run the following commands to view all saved wireless profiles on your machine: netsh wlan show profile

  3. Note the profile name that you want to delete and run the following command: netsh wlan delete profile “profile name in quotes”


That is it, your profile will be instantly deleted.  Now that was not very difficult but it a horrible user experience attempting to do something so simple.

How to Delete Wireless Profiles in Windows 8

tip_primar-100011253-galleryHow to Delete Wireless Profiles in Windows 8

Missing in Windows 8 is the ability to view and delete all wireless profiles from your PC.  For some unknown reason Microsoft removed that feature which is very problematic if you ever need to edit a saved profile or delete one.

I recently had an issue with a wireless access point that had a hidden SSID.  I had to manually setup the connection but I forgot to check the box to connect even if the network is not broadcasting. So I was able to connect the first time but all other attempts failed because the network would not show up on the new wireless charm list. When I would try to re-add the profile again using the manually create wireless screen it would fail because there was another wireless profile with the exact same name.  Since Microsoft tore out the GUI t delete and edit profiles, I was stuck.

After some research I found that there is a command line utility that will let you delete profiles.  To use that follow these steps:

  1. Open up an administrative level command prompt.

  2. Run the following commands to view all saved wireless profiles on your machine: netsh wlan show profile

  3. Note the profile name that you want to delete and run the following command: netsh wlan delete profile “profile name in quotes”


That is it, your profile will be instantly deleted.  Now that was not very difficult but it a horrible user experience attempting to do something so simple.