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After network changes during lifetime of my computer, "Local area connection" ordinal number is now at 12.

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection 3:

   Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :

Wireless LAN adapter Local Area Connection* 12:

   Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :

Can I locate and delete records of unnecessary connections 1-11? Do they actually exist somewhere or not?

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  • If you go to the network adapter settings do you see Adapters?
    – Dylan_R
    Commented Dec 16, 2016 at 11:15
  • I got this when using usb tethering, every time I connected again it created a new one, got up to like 90 connections or so, but unfortunately I forgot how I got rid of them when I had a proper setup :( sorry
    – Olle Kelderman
    Commented Dec 16, 2016 at 13:35
  • This could maybe also helpful: superuser.com/questions/744518/…
    – Tech-IO
    Commented Dec 18, 2016 at 20:41

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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You can rename the connection to something pretty, such as "Wi-Fi" (Windows will prompt for admin elevation). If the new name will stay, you are probably OK. No need to worry about previous connection/adapter names.

Otherwise (if it will create another "Local Area connection" in few days), some hardware issue likely exists.

(... added later...)

Anyway in output of ipconfig you'll see noise such as "isatap", hyper-v bridges and so on. You can display hidden/non-present devices in Device manager and check if these were physical adapters once connected, and delete them. Normally (if the system looks generally healthy) one does not care about few stale instances. Tampering with device manager or regedit is dangerous.

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  • Good. But I found that the connections I listed above are not present in the GUI. I mean that Network Connections control panel lists only 6 connections (they are stable and I alreday gave them easy understandable names), but ipconfig (without switches) lists 10 connections. That "Local Area Connection *12" is not visible in the GUI.
    – miroxlav
    Commented Dec 16, 2016 at 17:53
  • In Windows, if something is not visible in the GUI, usually it is not worth worrying. Anyway in output of ipconfig you'll see noise such as "isatap", hyper-v bridges and so on. You can display hidden/non-present devices in Device manager and check if these were physical adapters once connected, and delete them. Normally (if the system looks generally healthy) one does not care about few stale instances. Tampering with device manager or regedit is dangerous.
    – ddbug
    Commented Dec 18, 2016 at 14:31
  • Your additional comment was helpful part of the answer, thank you. Maybe you can consider adding it directly to the answer.
    – miroxlav
    Commented Dec 18, 2016 at 15:05

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