Managing Wireless Configuration with NETSH

Today when I was using the netsh command to configure some firewall settings, I noticed that it also has options for WLAN. (Yes you never stop learning). When opening a command prompt and executing NETSH Wlan Help you get the following options.

add            – Adds a configuration entry to a table.
connect        – Connects to a wireless network.
delete         – Deletes a configuration entry from a table.
disconnect     – Disconnects from a wireless network.
dump           – Displays a configuration script.
export         – Saves WLAN profiles to XML files.
help           – Displays a list of commands.
refresh        – Refresh hosted network settings.
reportissues   – Generate WLAN smart trace report.
set            – Sets configuration information.
show           – Displays information.
start          – Start hosted network.
stop           – Stop hosted network.

To see my current Wireless configuration I open a command prompt and run NETSH Wlan Show Profile

Profiles on interface Wireless Network Connection:

Group policy profiles (read only)
———————————
    <None>

User profiles
————-
    All User Profile     : ORANJE2

I currently have only one Wireless profile configured called ORANJE2

Now let’s add a new Wireless Configuration, the first time I am going to do this manually so open the Wireless Connection window and select a Wireless access point. (there are a lot of them in our neighborhood and unfortunately being the unofficial first line support I know they keys of some of them)

once connected I run the NETSH Wlan Show Profiles again

Profiles on interface Wireless Network Connection:

Group policy profiles (read only)
———————————
    <None>

User profiles
————-
    All User Profile     : wakair
    All User Profile     : ORANJE2

To save the Wireless Profile settings open a command prompt and run NETSH Wlan Export Profile <ProfileName>

Interface profile "wakair" is saved in file ".\Wireless Network Connection-wakair.xml" successfully.

Now that I have the Wireless Profile saved in an XML file I can copy it and run the below command on any other client to automatically configure the Wireless settings.

netsh wlan add profile filename=Wireless Network Connection-wakair.xml

And finally to delete a Wireless Profile simply run

netsh wlan delete  profile <ProfileName>