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TechKnowSurge Catalog Videos DEMO: Wireless
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DEMO: Wireless

Windows laptops allow users to view available wireless networks, configure Wi-Fi security settings, and manually add connections to networks that do not broadcast their SSID. This content covers the key options found in the Windows wireless configuration interface, including security protocol selection and automatic connection behavior.

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About this video

Windows laptops expose wireless network management through the system tray and the Network and Internet settings panel. Clicking the wireless icon displays all SSIDs currently being broadcast in range, with lock icons indicating which networks have security enabled. From the Wi-Fi settings menu, users can access the Manage Known Networks section to review previously saved connections and add new ones manually. Manually adding a network requires entering the SSID, selecting a security type, and providing the corresponding security key. Windows currently supports several protocols in this workflow, including WPA2 Personal with AES encryption, WPA2 Enterprise, and WPA3. These standards have evolved over time as older protocols were found to be vulnerable, and the available options reflect that ongoing development in wireless security. When configuring a manual connection, users can also specify whether the device should connect automatically when the network is detected and whether it should attempt to connect even when the SSID is not being broadcast. These settings give administrators and end users fine-grained control over how the wireless adapter behaves, which is particularly useful in environments where SSID broadcasting is intentionally disabled as a basic network hardening measure.

What you'll learn

What's covered

Windows Wireless Settings

Aligned to

CompTIA A+ Core 2
1.6 Given a scenario, configure Microsoft Windows networking on a client desktop.
2.2 Compare and contrast wireless security protocols and authentication methods.
CompTIA Network+
2.3 Given a scenario, select and configure wireless devices and technologies.
Cisco CCST Networking
3.4 Demonstrate how to set up and check network connectivity
6.3 Configure basic wireless security on a home router
Cisco CCST IT
3.1 Assist users with establishing access to network-based resources
Cisco CCNA
5.9 Describe wireless security protocols
Cisco CCST Cybersecurity
2.4 Set up a secure wireless SoHo network

Key terms

Service Set Identifier
SSID
The network name broadcast by a wireless access point that clients use to identify and connect to a specific Wi-Fi network. SSIDs can be up to 32 characters long and are transmitted in beacon frames; networks may be configured to suppress SSID broadcasting for limited obscurity.
Wireless Access Point
WAP
A device that allows wireless devices to connect to a wired network using Wi-Fi.
Authentication
The process of verifying the identity of a user, device, or system.
Encryption
The process of converting readable data into an unreadable format using an algorithm and key to prevent unauthorized access.
WPA2 Personal
A wireless security mode that uses a pre-shared key (password) and AES encryption to authenticate and protect individual users on a network.
WPA2 Enterprise
A wireless security mode that uses a RADIUS authentication server instead of a shared password, providing stronger, identity-based access control for organizational networks.
Wi-Fi Protected Access 3
WPA3
The latest Wi-Fi Alliance security certification that replaces WPA2's PSK handshake with Simultaneous Authentication of Equals (SAE) for stronger password-based authentication and mandates GCMP-128 encryption. WPA3 also requires Protected Management Frames and provides forward secrecy to protect captured traffic against future key compromise.
Advanced Encryption Standard
AES
A symmetric encryption algorithm widely used to secure data, supporting key sizes of 128, 192, and 256 bits.

Transcript

Let's take a look at some of the wireless settings on a Windows laptop.

Seeing Broadcast SSIDs

In here on the bottom right hand side, I have a little wireless symbol that I'll click, and it will pop up with a menu item. This is showing all of the SSIDs that are being broadcast near my laptop. Anything that my laptop is seeing where the SSID is being broadcast out, it's going to list here, and I can scroll through and connect to these different networks here.

Some of them are secure. You can see the little lock symbol next to it. That means that there's some sort of wireless security on those networks.

Adding a Network Manually

A lot of times we have just our networks where the SSID gets broadcast out and you just set it up that way. We're going to go through the process, though, of setting up a network as if the SSID was not being broadcast out and we have to manually set up that connection, because then you'll get to see some of the network settings there.

I'm going to connect to this network and internet settings right here. On the left hand side, I want to configure Wi-Fi, so I'm going to click on Wi-Fi. What I'm looking for is manage known networks. I'm going to click on that, and it's going to show me the networks that I've connected to in the past, or at least the ones that I said remember this connection. There's only one, because I haven't really used this laptop for much.

What I'm going to do here is add a new connection. Then it's going to ask for a name. This would be the SSID that's being broadcast out. Maybe there's a network that I have that's not broadcasting the SSID, and then I would type that in here. So maybe I just say test 123 is the name of my SSID, and maybe it is being broadcast out.

Security Types

Then I choose the security type, and we see in here we have several security types. Here we have WPA2 — that's personal AES or enterprise AES — and WPA3. WEP was one of the ones that came out initially, and of course they say, oh, it can't be broken, and then it gets broken right away. So that's a problem. Then they come up with more and better encryption, so you'll see that this list gets updated over time.

Let's just say that this is a WPA2 personal one. Then it has some sort of security key, and you type in the security key here. I choose whether I want to connect to this automatically when it sees that this network is available, and even if the network is not broadcasting out the SSID.

So there's some network settings on how to set up your wireless card.

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