How To Share Wifi Adapter With Ethernet Connection, Youtube, Windows 8.1

A funny thing happened afterwards a recent motility – subsequently setting upwards my wireless router in a new apartment, no matter how I tried, I couldn't change the name of the device'southward wired network connectedness on whatsoever of the Windows eight machines physically fastened to it. Puzzling? Very.

This went for weeks and I'd regularly return to trying to fix it, but when the answer isn't blindingly obvious and every sane attempt to discover one doesn't work, I tend to surrender after a while. It'southward kind of like New Tomb Raider logic: can't get past the big bad wolf? Well, screw this game, I'm playing something else. In other words, if the hours fly past and I have no progress to prove for it, it's time to move on, and maybe come back to it later.

To brand a long story short, I brought this router with me from a previous household and the "names" it bore (SSID and Ethernet) were unique to that household, and thus needed to be changed.

The "Service Gear up Identifier" is easy. The router now has a derisive moniker inspired by my cat (don't approximate, he's a absurd cat):

If I connect to the router via WiFi, the connexion it makes will exist called "SmoothBGuac", and if I change the SSID, it will exist reflected accordingly, on whatsoever fastened devices. If I connect to the router via Ethernet (skilful old Cat5) for the first fourth dimension with a Windows 8.1 PC, it names the wired connection according to what the SSID is set every bit, and that's it. If I modify the SSID again, the wired connection is still whatever information technology first continued as – with no obvious way to change it.

My "big" PC is my productivity auto – information technology's the typical, noisy, blackness monolithic box, 2-screens, big keyboard kind of setup. Whenever possible, this machine is connected to the router via old school Ethernet. (The router is a Netgear WGR614. The firmware is not upgradeable and leaves much to be desired But it is reliable and it works.) Since a wired connectedness is stable, secure, and since my PC's motherboard doesn't have a lot of room for expansion, it frees me upwardly from having to take a dedicated wireless adapter.

If I have to use a wireless connection – say for testing or screenshots – then I accept one of those simple USB Wi-Fi adapters I can plug in and I'm good-to-go.

Naturally, How-To Geek was interested in figuring out how to strength Windows to rename the wired connexion in the almost non-destructive (not reinstalling Windows or creating a new user profile) way equally possible. So we put our heads together, and after some digging, we discovered a few things: it'south not incommunicable to do this, in fact it's adequately easy, but it isn't obvious and shouldn't elicit so much caput scratching.

Here's what we're talking nearly

Networking computers together hasn't always been every bit simple as it is today. In fact, less than a decade agone, it could be quite slow and when Windows 95 debuted, it was about unheard of to have a "home network". Almost households didn't have computers, and if they did, it was a big beige box that sat on a desk (or side by side to one) with a big CRT monitor that weighed 50+ pounds. And, if the computer was even connected to the Cyberspace, it was through a modem — a very slow, wearisome, modem.

Point is, networking was hard and it didn't really get simple until networking components became integrated onto motherboards, operating systems adapted to make information technology near seamless, and wired/wireless routers became affordable. At present pretty much everything has a network adapter and anybody has a "network", fifty-fifty if it is just a glorified gateway to the Internet.

Merely, getting dorsum to our quandary, if you click on the wired network adapter in the taskbar'southward organisation tray, yous can see that we are connected to "MrKittyNet" – that is to say, this system'due south Ethernet adapter (Eth0) is physically connected to the wireless router, otherwise known to it every bit "MrKittyNet". Windows apparently assumes the SSID of this router if this is the start time it connects to information technology via Cat5 cable.

For example, hither's our wired adapter in the desktop control panel and the tooltip on the connection icon in the taskbar system tray.

Click on the arrangement tray icon, and it shows upwards this style in the "Networks" panel too:

So, whenever the computer is plugged into this item wireless router – a regular everyday Netgear device that you can pick upwards at a local computer store or off of Amazon – the connection assumes the name "MrKittyNet" and retains it even after the SSID is changed.

The router isn't the answer. Nosotros couldn't make any change to information technology that so affected the connection name. The closest setting that seemed promising was the "Device Proper noun" on the "LAN Setup" tab in the "Advanced" settings:

But all this does is name the device, which shows up in the Network as the gateway. Note here, it is named slightly differently for comparison'south sake.

Okay, it was a long shot but worth a effort, and since renaming the SSID doesn't work either, it has to be something we can modify on the operating system.

Et tu, Networking and Sharing Center?

The control panel, "Networking and Sharing Center" seems like our best bet because it'south such a simple thing. The offset matter we investigate is "change adapter settings".

We accept some options here, the most promising being "rename this connection", but all this does is rename the adapter (currently Eth0). And why is the connection referred to as "Status"? Regardless, zero hither works.

Having established that "Eth0" (the network adapter) has null to do with what the actual connexion to the router is called, it was fourth dimension to practise some Googling.

Alas, poor Windows 7! We miss you lot!

Honestly, we employ Windows 8.1 considering information technology'south stable and secure. It performs well on cheap, older hardware and is fully compatible with all the gazillions of applications and games in the sprawling Windows universe. But, at the same fourth dimension, we sorely miss Windows 7 sometimes. Main amidst what we miss about Windows vii is the ability to view your wireless network history and "forget" (delete) old networks you'd previously connected to.

We don't want to dwell, and to be fair, you lot can forget wireless networks in Windows eight.1 too but information technology's not nearly as simple as it was in Windows 7, which provided users with a graphical history, accessible from the networking panel. Oddly plenty, Windows eight.1 regresses even further from Windows 8, which allowed you to correct-click on any in-range wireless network in the "Networks" pane and "forget" it.

Windows 8.1 forces you lot accept to use the control line to do this, which makes one wonder why Microsoft hates united states?

Start first by doing a search for "cmd" or hitting "WIN KEY + R" and execute "cmd" from the run dialog:

And and then from the command line type "netsh wlan show profiles":

Now type "netsh wlan delete contour name=ProfileName".

For example, if nosotros want to delete "dlink-BADF" we'd type "netsh wlan delete profile proper name=dlink-BADF" and that wireless network is purged from the history. But, this only applies to wireless networks. Notation, "MrKittyNet" isn't listed, and then this dead end, while useful, is nevertheless a dead stop. So, at present what?

Wait to the Windows Registry!

The answer lies within the Windows registry, and in order to ready the trouble, we take to use the dreaded Registry Editor – a tool then powerful and terrifying that is tin completely screw your system beyond recognition. Obviously, standard registry editing disclaimer applies: if yous're going to muck virtually in your registry make certain you know what yous're doing, and that you back stuff up. We are not responsible if disaster strikes.

That said, this is a pretty uncomplicated set up. Either search for "regedit" or run it from "WIN KEY + R". Annotation, you will need administrator privileges to practise this.

The quickest way is probably merely to search (F3) for the name of the wired network you want to alter. We find three instances of "MrKittyNet" in the registry. 2 of them, as nosotros run into in the screenshot, are keys. Y'all tin can leave these be; they will not have any impact on the name of the connection.

The occurrence of "MrKittyNet" that we practise want to change is found here:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\NetworkList\Profiles

Within the "Profiles" central will likely exist two more keys. In the following screenshot, you can meet that the Data value of the string "ProfileName" is what we need to alter.

Correct-click on the "ProfileName" string as shown above and select "Modify". Let'south go ahead and input the name of our wireless SSID then our connections "match":

Click "OK" and restart or simply log out and log back into your computer, and you now see our wired network finally displays the proper noun nosotros wanted, "SmoothBGuac":

Why is this so hard?

Many questions immediately arise from this experience. Aside from the intrinsic value of this registry hack – it is kind of a niche problem that nigh users won't have to deal with – the biggest question that comes to mind is, why is it so hard to do? And immediately following, why does it take to exist done in the first identify? Why doesn't the wired connection's proper noun change according to what the SSID is? Or, why doesn't the networking pane just testify the proper name of the adapter "Eth0"? Why tin't we just simply rename information technology without getting into the basics and bolts of the organization?

Obviously the router does play a function at some betoken. When a new arrangement connects to it, the wired adapter takes on the SSID'due south label. And information technology's easy to imagine connecting to a more robust (read: expensive) network infrastructure device might resolve this problem, merely it'due south also easy to imagine that it might not.

Have y'all ever experienced this type of result? What did you practise to gear up it? Accept you a better workaround than diving into the registry? Audio off in the comments!

Source: https://www.howtogeek.com/176148/how-to-%E2%80%9Cforget%E2%80%9D-a-wired-or-wireless-network-in-windows-8.1/

Posted by: ruthgairciand.blogspot.com

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