Delete Saved Preferred Wireless Network Profiles On Windows 8, 7 & XP

Windows OS has the ability to remember WiFi profiles on your computer once you join the network. We call preferred networks to denote these saved WiFi profiles which consist of details like SSID, wireless key, encryption etc. When you are back in range of a saved profile, your PC will automatically connect to it. Though this feature is helpful, rarely it makes some issues too. In case if admin changed the wireless key, your PC will try to use the old information to join it and cause connectivity issues. In that case, we need to delete the old saved profile. On Windows 7 and XP we can do it from Graphical User Interface but there is no such option available on Windows 8. If your PC runs on Windows 8, you must use Command Prompt to see the preferred network and you must delete any of them from there only. This tutorial explains how to view and remove any preferred networks on your system.


This Operating System does not offer any straight ways to remove preferred WiFi details from GUI and we should go to Command Prompt to perform it.

1. Type cmd on Search and Open Command Prompt
   
   
2. Type netsh wlan show profile and press enter to view all saved preferred profiles
   
   
3. Type netsh wlan delete profile name=name of the one you want to delete and press enter
   
   

This procedure will delete all information stored on your PC related to that profile.



Here we can use GUI to find the list of preferred networks stored on a laptop.

1. Click on Start
   
   
2. Click on Control Panel
   
   
3. Click on Network and Internet
   
   
   
4. Click on Network Status and Tasks
   
   
   
5. Click on Manage Wireless Networks panel
   
   
   Now the all stored WiFi details will be shown. You can select the anyone from the list (preferred profiles ) and click on remove.  After this, your computer no longer remembers that network.
   

You can use the same command prompt procedure to perform this task on Windows 7 too. Since it is already explained, I am not repeating the same steps. You can use the same steps to view and remove any expired wireless profile from your computer from Command Prompt using the command netsh wlan delete profile name=name of the profile.


If your computer runs on XP Operating System, you can manage all WiFi profiles stored on your PC by following the instructions provided in the link below.
How to Manage Preferred Profiles On XP

Further Readings

1. Backward Compatibility Between Wireless N and G
   
   
2. I am Getting  Automatic Private IP Address
   
   
3. How to Remove Wlan Filter From Command Prompt
   
   
4. How to Start WLAN AutoConfig On a PC
   
   
5. The Connection Has Limited Or No Connectivity

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