How does one change which wifi adapter the wifi miniport uses?

Everyone's had the problem of wanting to disable the wifi miniport, or enable it to share wifi.

I have a different problem. I would like to change which wireless device the wifi miniport uses, as the external USB wireless adapter I was using died. I cannot see the wifi miniport adapter without that device attached, it seems. I don't even know if the wifi adapter even as options to select which wireless card to use even if I could get it to appear.

Is there a way to do this without having to resort to reinstalling Windows 7?

I am fairly familiar with netsh. No command line option seems to be available to switch network adapters for the wifi miniport.

It also appears that it will simply not switch to the only wireless network adapter detected, and I know it will host a virtual wifi network, I've done ICS/AdHoc before.

Right click on your network icon in the Notification Area. Select Open Network and Sharing Center.

In the left pane of NSC, click on Change adaptor settings. You should get a new screen of all available adaptors. You can enable/disable adaptors there. Keep in mind that you should disable the active before enabling a new adaptor.

Does it show in the Device Manager? Post a screen shot with Network Adaptors expanded.

Click on View in the menu bar and click on Show hidden devices.


Ops, we were typing at the same time.
You should be able to right click on the adaptor and enable it. But disable the other first. It may cause Windows to hang. (Had that happen once.)