Windows 7 will not remember wireless network key

Anonymous
2010-02-17T14:25:04+00:00

I have two wireless networks in my home, which are both secured with WPA - Personal TKIP encryption. For some reason, every time I reboot and login, I must re-enter my network key. I've been living with this for about six months but now its getting on my nerves.

I have Windows 7 Home Premium x64

I would be very grateful if anyone could solve this problem as it is extremely annoying and would save me a lot of time.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Internet and connectivity

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Anonymous
2011-08-24T19:24:59+00:00

I have been banging my head against a wall with this issue for some time but I have finally found the solution.

If you are having trouble with Windows 7 not saving your network security key, or reverting to some old key, the solution is as follows:

run msconfig (start > run (or just type into the "Search programs and files" field above the windows orb) > msconfig)

this brings up the System Configuration dialog box

click the Startup tab

scroll to find your wifi adapter's startup program (in my case it was NETGEAR)

uncheck the box next to this startup item

restart your computer. problem solved.

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-03-20T19:44:53+00:00

    Bingo!

    Thank you AustinBaker!

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-02-28T23:28:08+00:00

    I had a similar issue except that windows would, rather than not remember the key, it remembered the wrong key.

    The problem was with a win7 Laptop connecting to an  iPhone ios7 "Personal Hotspot" .

    The Password/Key that I saved worked the first time it was set up, but subsequent connections would not accept the key.

    When checking the key windows had registered for that SSID , it was some odd string of characters, but always the same.

    The problem turned out to be that when Windows encrypted, and/or decrypted the Wireless Connection configuration, mentioned previously as being saved under C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Wlansvc\ it could not cope with "non-standard" characters in the SSID.

    The name of the iPhone, thus the SSID, was set to "Brian's iPhone". (see the apostrophe)

    I could connect with this SSID with our desired key, but subsequent attempts did not recognize the key.

    Changing the iPhone's SSID to "Brians-iPhone" solved the problem.

    Since there is no documentation from Microsoft stating that an SSID must contain only certain characters, and since no warning pops up at any time... Im calling this a BUG.

    My gut feeling is that the programmer that created the encryption/decryption script for this function needs re-visit the script and fix the problem.

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  4. Anonymous
    2015-01-25T08:25:20+00:00

    Worked for me.  Many thanks.

    In my case the problem only appeared after years of using Win 7 without ever experiencing this.  I suspect this was a side-effect of installing some music packages I have been evaluating.

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