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

[techkitsune]

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.

 

[techkitsune]

I tried the solution in this link: http://www.sevenforums.com/virtuali...-microsoft-virtual-wifi-miniport-adapter.html

This did not work.

 

[techkitsune]

I have tried a couple of other things. Changing the internal wireless network card did not help. Changing over to a different user account did not help.

I'm really stuck looking at a reformat, aren't I?

 

[carwiz]

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.

 

[techkitsune]

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.

Tried that. Miniport doesn't show up. It disappeared when the wifi adapter failed.

 

[carwiz]

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

 

[techkitsune]

Negative, Ghost Rider.

 

[techkitsune]

To boot, the RealTek 8187 is known-compatible for Hosted Networks.

 

[techkitsune]

Oh-ho! I just plugged the dead card in and tweaked it, and got it to come on long enough to disable the virtual miniport and kill the driver for the adapter so it should be gone.

Now, how would I tell Windows to use the other wifi card?

 

[carwiz]

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.)

 

[techkitsune]

Tried, got an error and it disappeared from the list.

Bah! Let me go pop the view open and see if it's hiding.

 

[techkitsune]

Well, then. It actually makes sense that it's not here, I did uninstall both the driver for the miniport and the wireless card (thinking the miniport driver would just get reinstalled when needed by the next configuration.)

I guess I can reinstall the feature from my install disc, if that's needed.

 

[carwiz]

Just on a whim, right click on your computer name (Headless?) and scan for hardware changes.

 

[carwiz]

If that doesn't work, try a Repair Install. Read the Notes, Tips and Warnings carefully. There are some drawbacks and restrictions.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3413-repair-install.html

 

[techkitsune]

Looks like I need to repair install. Which means shutting down all these other servers, drat! Ah well!

And failing that, full reinstall over.

 

[techkitsune]

Bah, repair went wonky and I ended up having to reinstall from scratch anyways.

Thankfully I backed up the servers before I did that!

 

[techkitsune]

Now to see if the reinstall worked. After I get the gui control installed because I do not feel like typing.

 

[techkitsune]

Bah. Nope. No dice.

Manual typing it is.

 

[techkitsune]

Bah, still not working.

Well, I can always try to reflow the USB connection, as that seems to be what's wrong with the adapter I was using...

 

[techkitsune]

Well, can't call this solved, but can likely call it closed. Thanks for the try, carwiz!