Solution: Wrong wireless network icon displayed

Hello guys...

I am posting my solution to a problem often found on Windows 7 and caused by not-so well written drivers/software stacks. My problem started after installing the BlueSoleil Bluetooth stack, as the Wireless icon showed that netwroks were available, instead of that I am actually connected to one.

Uninstalling device drivers, BlueSoleil and restarting did not help.

The root of the problem appears to be a non plug-and-play driver, which is unaffected by disabling/removing hardware drivers: "Virtual WiFi Filter Driver".

To fix the problem do the following:
-Open "Device Manager".
-Click on "View" and tick "Show hidden devices".
-Find and expand the "Non-Plug and Play Drivers" tree.
-Open the "Virtual WiFi Filter Driver"
-Click on the "Driver" tab and then "Stop".

After doing this, you will immediately notice how the wireless icon displays properly. You do not need to unisntall the driver, as it is a Windows service and will be re-enabled automatically.

If that does not work for you, you may want to try to stop some other of the WiFi drivers listed in the "Non-Plug and Play Drivers" list.

alexs3d2 said:

Hello guys...

I am posting my solution to a problem often found on Windows 7 and caused by not-so well written drivers/software stacks. My problem started after installing the BlueSoleil Bluetooth stack, as the Wireless icon showed that netwroks were available, instead of that I am actually connected to one.

Uninstalling device drivers, BlueSoleil and restarting did not help.

The root of the problem appears to be a non plug-and-play driver, which is unaffected by disabling/removing hardware drivers: "Virtual WiFi Filter Driver".

To fix the problem do the following:
-Open "Device Manager".
-Click on "View" and tick "Show hidden devices".
-Find and expand the "Non-Plug and Play Drivers" tree.
-Open the "Virtual WiFi Filter Driver"
-Click on the "Driver" tab and then "Stop".

After doing this, you will immediately notice how the wireless icon displays properly. You do not need to unisntall the driver, as it is a Windows service and will be re-enabled automatically.

If that does not work for you, you may want to try to stop some other of the WiFi drivers listed in the "Non-Plug and Play Drivers" list.

Thanks for the info

When I press the stop button, it doesn't stop.

It returns an error dialog saying that it won't stop.

After acknowledging the error the driver properties window shows a status of "Stopping" with the "Start" & "Stop" buttons grayed out.


I checked under services.msc and couldn't find a service labeled either "Virtual WiFi Filter Driver" or "vwififlt" as shown in the driver properties.


Can I uninstall the driver safely?

Specifically, will Windows re-install it if it's needed; or is it even needed?

I'm having the same problem as aluengas.

I appreciate the info here. It was the Bluesoleil drivers that did this to me as well.

aluengas, did you resolve this?

I also had the same problem where the service won't stop. Here's what I did:

0) If you click 'driver details' from the 'driver' tab of the device properties (from device manager), it will show you the driver name and location. It should be C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\vwififlt.sys
1) Get a valid copy of the driver (vwififlt.sys). I have another computer running the exact same version of Win7, so I copied it from the system files of that computer.
2) Restart the computer in safe mode. This ensures that the service won't be running.
3) Follow these instructions to give yourself rights to delete the driver.
4)Delete it, and replace it with the valid version.
4) Restart normally.

I had the same problem today and find this page. However, Virtual WiFi Filter Driver cannot stop either. I checked another computer for the file "vwififlt" but I found that it has the same size and date. So I assume it hasn't been corrupted.

I finally fixed it by reset all network using command line.
please see this page:
Resetting your network adapter in Windows 7

Problem can be resolved by uninstalling the software which has created loopback or virtual networks etc.
The most popular is VM VirtualBox. Uninstalling one of these software will fix the icon.

Thank you @alexs3d2!
Problem solved after I uninstalled the "Virtual WiFi Filter Driver".
At the beginning I tried to stop this driver but as stated by other user in this thread, an error occured. So I just uninstalled the driver and restart the system. Problem solved!!

Thank you @alexs3d2! Such an old thread it still helped. Changing the type to disabled did it for me with a restart.