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Saturday, January 7, 2012

How To Copy Wlan Profiles

When you are moving from one PC to the other, or are making use of multiple devices running Windows, you probably want to have data available on all the PCs. This can be personal files like documents or music, but also configuration settings for the Windows Firewall. If you are connecting to the Internet via Wlan, you probably also need to configure all the devices for that. And while you could do that manually, it is usually faster to configure it once and copy the profiles then to other PCs running Windows.

The following tutorial explains how you can export and import Wlan profiles under Windows natively. A third party program is not required.

Please note that you need to run commands on Windows’ command prompt. Windows 7 users can check out the following alternative that is available in their operating system: How to Backup and Import Wireless Network Settings in Windows 7. Users running other versions of Windows can take a look at the third party tool Wireless Migrator.

Copy Wlan Profiles

Use the keyboard shortcut Windows-R to open the run box. Enter cmd and tap on the enter key to open the command prompt window. The first thing you may want to do is to display all Wlan profiles configured on the system. The command netsh wlan show profiles does that.

Locate the Wlan profile that you want to copy. You can identify them by their profile name, which should be identical to the Wlan’s SSID. Run the following command to export the Wlan profile on your system: netsh wlan export profile name=”SSID” folder=”c:\wlanbackup”. Note that the folder needs to exist prior to running the command; an error message is displayed otherwise.

You can now copy the saved Wlan profile to another computer system. Open a command prompt window on the device afterwards and run the following command to import the copied Wlan profile on the system: netsh wlan add profile filename=”e:\Wi-Fi-SSID.xml”. Replace SSID with the Wlan’s identifier and the drive letter and folder as well. Repeat the steps for all devices that you want to connect to the Wlan.

© Martin Brinkmann for gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials, 2012. | Permalink |
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Post tags: backup wireless profile, wlan

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

How To Disable WLAN Background Scans

Some Windows users who are connecting via wireless lan to the Internet may have noticed regular ping spikes and sometimes even disconnects due to an automated background scan. Especially Windows Vista users have been plagued by this issue, but it has also been reported by users running Windows XP or Windows 7.

You can test if your wireless connection is having regular lags by opening the Windows command line (Windows-r, type cmd, hit enter) and use the ping command to ping a local or remote IP address (e.g. ping -t 192.168.1.1).

If you see time spikes you are affected by the issue.

Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1355ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64

The WLAN AutoConfig service is responsible for the scans which are executed even if the computer is already connected to a wireless network. Users have reported connection issues for up to five seconds during scans which is especially problematic for Internet gamers and users who use streaming media services.

It is not possible to disable the WLAN AutoConfig service right away, as it is needed to establish the connection.

The free software program WLAN Optimizer resolves the issue by disabling background scans once a wireless connection has been made.

The portable program displays all options in two tabs in its interface. The status tab displays a pulldown wireless network adapter selection menu and the status of the tweaks the program offers.

The settings tab displays options to enable background scan and streaming mode. It is not recommended to disable autoconfig in the menu, but the option is available.

WLAN Optimizer is however not the only software that disables wireless background scans. The free tool VBGScan is also capable of disabling the scans. It has been developed for Vista, and it is not clear if it works under Windows 7 as well.