Easy Way to Set Up a New Wireless Network Connection in Windows [1]
The previous tip [3] described how to reveal and extract the password for an existing Windows wireless connection. This present tip goes one step further and shows an automatic method of setting up a new wireless network connection that takes setup data from a system that is already connected and imports it into a second system.
The method uses the command line and works by first exporting existing connection data to an XML file. Open a command prompt with administrator privileges and enter a command of the form:
netsh wlan export profile name={profile name} folder={path and name of folder} key=clear
Profile name is the same as the connection name referred to in the previous tip [3]. Use quotation marks around the profile name if it has spaces. Running this command creates an XML file with the name of the profile and places it in a designated folder. The folder must already exist. The XML file can also be sent to a portable location like a thumb drive or a network location (but not a UNC address). A specific example of the command might be:
netsh wlan export profile name=yourconnection folder=G:\ key=clear
This would create a file called “Wi-Fi-yourconnection.xml” on the G: drive. This file can then be imported with a second command to create a new connection in a different system. Open a command prompt as administrator in the new system. The command to create a new connection from an XML profile has the form:
netsh wlan add profile filename={path and name of XML file previously created}
A specific example of the command is:
netsh wlan add profile filename=D:\Wi-Fi-yourconnection.xml
This method should work in all current versions of Windows from Vista on up.
And there you have it – your new wireless connection all set up.
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This tips section is maintained by Vic Laurie [5]. Vic runs several websites with Windows how-to's, guides, and tutorials, including a site for learning about Windows and the Internet [6] and another with Windows 7 tips [7].
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