In the previous versions of Windows you could see the list of wireless networks you had previously connected to, change the order in which these Preferred Networks connected when more than one of them were available, as well as add or remove the Preferred Networks from this list. You could do so via Control Panel\Network and Internet\Manage Wireless Networks.
View Preferred Wireless Network Profiles in Windows 10/8
Up to Windows 7, previously connected wireless networks were saved and viewable via the Preferred Wireless Network List, but this feature seems to have been removed in Windows 8. Microsoft probably removed it as they have added a supposedly smart feature, that handles wireless profiles by how much you connect to it. While one can always still natively view the wireless network profiles, it would be nice if we had a freeware to do it quickly now, wouldn’t it?
With this background, we mind, we thought of releasing WiFi Profile Manager – a freeware that will help you continue to perform the same functions the same way.
WiFi Profile Manager for Windows PC
WiFi Profile Manager is a simple tool to view your Preferred Wireless Network Profiles in Windows 10/8. This tool tries to replace the functionality of the Wi-Fi Preferred Network dialog box.
Over time, if you connect to a lot of different wireless networks, this list can get pretty large and at times you may wish to remove unnecessary wireless profiles, especially if these networks were public Wi-Fi at the local fast-food spot and you don’t want your laptop connecting automatically to it again.
WiFi Profile Manager lets you:
- View the Preferred Network Profiles
- Change list order
- Export to XML
- Import from XML
- Remove Profiles
Do note that you are still able to create Network Profiles via Control Panel\ All Control Panel Items\ Network and Sharing Center\ Setup a new connection or network\ Manually connect to a wireless network.
WiFi Profile Manager has been developed by me for The Windows Club. Donations made go to me and not to The Windows Club.
Download the tool and run it as an administrator. It has been designed with Windows 8 in mind, but will run on Windows 7 or Windows 10 as well.
NOTE: It appears that this freeware works for some but not for others. I have tried it and it worked for me – Admin.
for the RTM Version of Windows 8 this tool did not work. It shows all WLANs as unavailable and the remove function has a bug.
I will have a new version within the next day or two to fix the issue in RTM. Worked perfectly up to RTM but I have located a new way to gather the profiles that will work perfectly for RTM. :)
Couldn’t you have a non-Metro less ugly UI with not so much in your face branding and ugly logons and credits?
Its a freeware!
There’s Visual Studio Express versions available for free if you wish to create an application strictly for your taste.
It shows all WLANs as unavailable
Thanks! Finally, something that works on Win8 RTM
Hi,
I would like to thank you for this application. Works fine on RTM. I just would like to report2 things which would be great to have ‘corrected’.
1. if any WiFi is removed it is still appeared unless application is Closed/re-launched.
it would be great to have some Refresh option
2. when any Wifi selected and launched Properties dialog – pwd line
(last one) become to be truncated. Possible option would be to fit properties dialog to the longest field or make it a little bit wider or make it customizable (to be able to change size of this dialog using mouse :-) )
again, thanks!
marian
It does not work for me. I am windows 8 evaluation copy. build 8250. It shows “unavailable” against all profiles.
It shows all WLANs as unavailable
Hi guys, great tool but I’m still struggling in windows 8 to change “Network Availability” settings from “All Users” to “Me Only”.
I have 2 different wireless routers and 2 windows user accounts, I’d like to be able to assign for good each network to each wireless network, is it possible somehow?
Cheers
Unfortunately this tool does not work under Windows 8 RT, any plans to produce an RT compatible version?
Lee, Hope you’ve picked up Surface and plan to deliver this in the ARM world. It’s sorely needed! Great application.
I can’t get it to work on my copy of Windows 8. I’m running an enterprise version.
totally sucks
Hello, I’m trying to create a Windows 8 Metro application similar to yours (that manage Wifi profiles) but for a MBAE (mobile broadband) application. I’m finding some problems, I do need to export each Wifi profile, set Preferred Networks and update automatically the MBAE ProvisioningProfile.xml (configuration file) to manage 3G off-loads and send this configuration file to ProvisioningAgent/Connection Manager of Windows 8… Do you know if there is any way to generate this Wifi Profiles (xml file) in Windows 8 Metro app? Many thanks.
Still not updated? Does not work on my RTM
Thank you so much. My employer uses a hidden SSID, which means you have to check the “Connect Even If The Network Is Not Broadcasting” checkbox… if you don’t, then it won’t connect, and in Win8 it won’t show in the available networks list, so you can’t edit it to fix the error.
Worse, if you try to add it again, it says it already exists, but when you click the option it gives you to change the settings, it just drops you to the desktop and the dialog never appears. Nice one Microsoft!
If not for this utility I’d still be stuck with no Wifi at work due to this ridiculous, obviously poorly thought out “feature” of Windows 8.
ne fonctionne pas
Nospam, I had the same problem. The following thread shows you how to find and delete the profile. Then create it and remember to check that box or ELSE lol.
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/nl-NL/w8itpronetworking/thread/ac80d8ec-21ad-4d44-9a0c-c8777f861db7
Thanks… The command line stuff is fine for me… but I work for a hospital and I have to walk patients and family members set up the Guest wifi access, and there’s no way I’m going to tell them how to get to a command prompt and type all that in to someone who’s hopped up on morphine or worse!
I have to say that MS seems to want us all to go back to a DOS command prompt from using Win8 so far… God knows you can’t find any application in the all programs list in any reasonable amount of time on the new Start menu without typing the name of it into the search box. At this point they may as well just have it pop up with C:> when you click the start button because you sure can’t do anything from the GUI. ;)
thank you so much, I spent almost an hour trying to do that and failed, with this, I did it in seconds.
why would you remove native wifi management? what harm could it have brought? it was much easier.
shit
It’s not *a* freeware. It’s freeware.
Yes, and when something is freeware, it can be as impotent as the author would like it to be.
I suppose freeware is the excuse you have for it also not working ALL THE TIME.
Because for me it works only occasionally. Most of the time it doesn’t.
So, if you’re going to use the excuse that it’s freeware, why even tell other people about it.
I’m sure that someone else will create a better utility.
Shame on you for asking for donations with a paypal icon for something so crappy.
All of the people who come into the hospital have Windows 8? Which hospital is this?
Yeah, and where is it?
Full of bugs.
My taste is that it would work. Why tell people about it if you haven’t even tested it?
Remember when people put something out as freeware and it actually didn’t have bugs?
lot of thx! very nice tool
Doesn’t work for me: all networks show as unavailable, and no command (remove, move up…) has any effect. I’m running Windows 8 Pro.
Hi, still no solution to that? :/
Love the idea; but I’m getting “illegal characters in path” when I start the App; just after it creates, and then deletes, a whole list of profile files.
Aah. I think it’s objecting to the apostrophe in my iPhone hotspot name; i.e. ‘Neil Cameron’s iPhone’.
Yes; that was it – renamed iPhone and now it’s OK
Doesn’t work for me on Windows 8 on Asus UX31a
OS: Windows
8 Pro x64
Hi there,
Very useful application.
But on my PC, I can see only the list of SSID. All the other properties are “Unavailable”.
Any suggestion?
The only “non-standard”setting of my Windows installation is that my “C:users” is a “symbolic link” to “D:users”., The reason for this change is that my “C:” drive (O.S. boot disk) is a small “SSD”, and I don’t want to have the content of “C:Users” located on it. Proceeding in this way, it is located on my “HDD” (data drive) “D:users”.
awesome thanks
It works for me, thanks!!. I’m using Windows 8.1 Pro Preview. In a Dell Latitude E5410 Intel Core i5
thank
very thanks!!!
you are saving win 8, i dont understand why this usefull tool was removed.
Can I change from auto to manual?
This program will not work properly when there is an apostrophe or other ‘illegal’ character in the name of the network. Just letting you know. So basically useless to me. Hopefully you can fix it. :) Thank you!
Have you given up on tablet-oriented OS Windows 8? The software still seems to be very buggy. As much as I want to dismiss Windows 8, I just can’t seem to find reliable Windows Se7en drivers for my Surface Pro.
Any way to differentiate between 2.4 / 5 ghz ?
It’s nice to have the visibility and management of wireless networks back in Windows 8.x. Thank you for your work. Will there be any additional updates? It would be beneficial to be able to modify the properties of each wireless network as well….
I’ve run into a problem with Windows 8.1. In 8.1 they seem to be storing profiles in the cloud. As I’ve been playing with the prerelease over the past 2 months, I’ve now found that I’ve got about 30 of the same SSID stored in my information. Each subsequent one has a number after it. Such as “router”, then “router 2” then “router 2 3” then “router 2 3 4” etc etc. If I delete any one of them locally with the nice little tool from The Windows Club, it will eventually show back up. And all of them showed up on a fresh installation of Windows 8.1 release that I just installed on a laptop. I don’t know how to delete these cloud based profiles. Can anyone help?
it has a bug, when i try to remove a connection, the number of connection became doubled, and doesnt show old wi-fi connection, with autoconneting option, only the connection when i try something like hub-to-hub when i try to connect 2 PCs via wi-fi
Hi there, running under 8.1 (under local Account login) it shows all connections as unavailable, in spite as starting under administrator privilege. Useless to me until corrected.
Same issues as KP more than a year ago! Bug with remove func. and WLANS unavailable!
do not works on my windows 8.1 Pro 64bits
Thank you so much for making this tool! I am shocked they took this out of Windows 8 because who does that help!? One of the dumbest decisions I’ve ever seen.
Can I make some suggestions though? When you view properties about a connection, what about letting us copy values? It would be useful to copy a password this way without exporting it. Another thing is, the program kind of freaks out when I remove a profile – it starts duplicating everything on the screen in its’ list, but it does remove it. It’d be nice if there was an installer too, that way it could be listed directly in the control panel and never lost as a single EXE floating around on one’s computer.
This works ‘barely’ in windows 8.1 Pro. When I moved a profile it duplicated temporarily the profiles and they were showing as ‘unavailable’ and when I removed a profile but closing reopening and elevated this time it showed the remaining profile which is what I wanted. I haven’t read anyone with the issue that right-click won’t work in Win 8.1 when it comes to ‘available wireless networks’ list. Cause this is how you’re meant to be able to manage network profiles “Right-click on available network list” BS.
Works perfectly Windows 8.1 Pro x64 Excellent Job!!!!!!!!!!!
Any chance you can update and fix the issues with this utility?
With the changes in Win8.1 this utility is even more essential.
DougCuk – Computer Support Engineer – London UK
Hi Lee, this is the fantastic app..but it is not working the properties update and sometimes the app will copy the wi-fy.txt in the desktop. If you can help me, please write me an -email to: sandro.taranghelle@gmail.com. Thanks a lot ….S
This is buggy. I apparently have one network in my list that has a “” in it. Or at least the app reports: Could not find part of the path ‘F:usersnamedownloadsWifi8Wi-Fi-Metro DentalcareWoodlake Ortho.xml’. Then the app stops processing the other 4 or 5 wifi’s in the list and doesn’t display them.
Narg, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersionNetworkListProfiles and delete the profile you are having issues with. I was up to SSID_Name 5.
Would be nice if you added a feature to view/remove the list of wifi networks in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersionNetworkListProfiles to remove the issue of Win8 creating networks called “SSID_Name 2, SSID_Name 3, SSID_Name 4, etc…”
thank you! it worked!
It has a couple of bugs. When you say to “move up” it copies each WiFi to below the existing list giving you a bit of confusion. Then you close it and execute it again and it shows the WiFi’s in the new order. Also it says “unsecured” for each network even though they are secured.