NetComms > Wireless > Disabling Ad Hoc Networks

Disabling Ad Hoc Networks

Published September 16th 2008

For Windows Users

Following is the process for Windows users to disable and remove Ad Hoc networks from their PC or Laptop. All Windows XP users with a wireless-capable machine should follow this process. For more information about Ad Hoc networks and why they should be disabled please see About Ad Hoc Networks.

• Removing Ad Hoc Networks
• Disabling Future Ad Hoc Network Creation

Removing Ad Hoc networks from your PC's Wireless configuration

1) Open the Control Panel

This is either:

a) directly under the Start Menu, or
b) under Start -> Settings.

2) Open Network Connections

This is either:

a) directly under the Control Panel, as per below:



b) or in the Network and Internet Connections area as below:

3) Right-Click on 'Wireless Network Connection' and select 'Properties':

4) Select the 'Wireless Networks' tab:

On the following screen you can see the various Preferred wireless networks. These are networks you have previously connected to.

Listed here are both Infrastructure and Ad Hoc networks. As before there is a different icon for Ad Hoc networks. In this example 'ANU-Access' is an infrastructure network as it has the antenna icon, whereas 'Free Public WiFi' is an Ad Hoc network as it has a different icon. The red cross indicates the Ad Hoc network is not currently connected or being advertised. You may also see a green tick here.

5) Remove all Ad Hoc networks

Now we need to select each Ad Hoc preffered network and click remove.

Do this for EVERY network that does NOT have an antenna icon. This includes Ad Hoc networks named "ANU-Access" or "ANU Access".

Disabling Future Ad Hoc Network Creation

1) Disable Ad Hoc network connections

When you have finished the steps above you should see something like this:

Only networks with Antenna icon should be displayed. In this case only ANU-Access is seen, but you may also have a home wireless network that you connect to present.

Now click 'Advanced' to enter the advanced settings dialogue.

2) Change Advanced settings

Select the second radio button 'Access-point (Infrastructure) networks only'

Make sure 'Automatically connect to non-preferred networks' is NOT ticked, then click 'Close'.

3) Save your changes

Finally click 'Ok' to save the changes:

You are done!