Cleaning up Network Connections in Windows 7 – Rename Local Area Network

Windows makes a mess of all the network adapters when installing NIC cards. Sometimes, you remove network adapters, and you’re left with something like “Local Area Network 3” that can’t be renamed back to “Local Area Network”. The problem is, Windows remembers the previous adapter (even if it is physically removed), so you can’t rename the adapter,  To view & remove all previously (non-connected) NIC adapters:

set DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES=1
devmgmt.msc

View > Show Hidden Devices

Now, you can remove any adapters that were previously installed (but no longer present) in windows.

After doing so, you should now be able to rename the network adapters back to “Local Area Connection”.

 

netsh interface set interface name=”Local Area Connection 2″ newname=”Local Area Connection”

You can delete Network profiles here :

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\NetworkList\Profiles