How do I hide my router's password? Windows 7 'Starter'__

Anonymous

Hi,

We just got a Lenovo S10 Netbook with Win 7 'Starter' version for my daughter and I have a question about configuring the Wifi access. This is my first exposure to Win 7, so I'll describe things as best I can.

I clicked on the "Internet Access" icon in the tray and up came the list of Wireless Network Connections. I selected the one for our WPA-PSK encrypted router and cut and pasted my ~30 character 'Network Security Key' (passphrase/password) and, bingo, I was connected to the internet and websurfing just fine.

Here is my question. How to I permenently hide my router's 'Network Security Key'?

When I go back to the Wireless Network Connections and right click my router and select 'Properties" and go to the "Security" tab, there is a small check box labelled "Show Characters" that will toggle back and forth between a string of dots and the 'plain text' 'Network Security Key' for anyone to read. I'm not willing to keep her set up to use our network if anyone with access to her Netbook can look up my router's WPA password.

I have quite a few devices connected wirelessly to our network, but this is the only one where I can see the password in plain text. The others only show a string of stars or dots to 'encrypt' the display of the password.

I will appreciate any help and so will the daughter that hopes to keep accessing the internet.

many thanks, BDT

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Anonymous

AFAIK you can't override that, although I could be wrong about that.

As far as others getting your wireless key from her netbook make sure your daughters account is astandard user account and that she does not have administrator permissions. That way if she tried to see the wireless security properties for your wireless network she can't unless she enters the administrator password. In the example screen shot if I am logged in as a standard user and try to check the Show characters checkbox UAC pops up and requests my administrative user password.

http://cid-25ab668da65c8fbe.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Windows%20images/Showcharacters.png

In all cases make sure the administrative user accounts are password protected with a strong password and access to those is severely restricted.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/Why-use-a-standard-user-account-instead-of-an-administrator-account

FWIW I run as a standard user 99% of the time on my Windows 7 laptop. My wife runs as a standard user 100% of the time on her XP Pro desktop. When I setup my PCs I create an administrative user, ie. Root in my case, and the required number of standard users for each machine. All are password protected. Root is only used to install programs, change system stuff, security settings, etc...etc...etc...

MS-MVP Windows Desktop Experience, "When all else fails, read the instructions"

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62 additional answers

Anonymous

2011-09-07T03:15:49+00:00

Basically, my neighbor didn't feel that she was stealing a password. Mostly because it was staring her in the face.

In other words, if she would have had to research how to acquire it from the windows registry, or use a tool, or any of the other ways; if she would have had to work at it at all, it would have seemed to her like stealing.

If she would have felt like she was stealing, even if she was smart enough to figure out how, I'd bet that she would not have.

But, instead of having to steal it, no, windows just offers it up. "Here it is! Use it as you please!", windows says to her. So, "Okay", she says. And, off she goes loading it into all of her devices.
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Anonymous

2011-09-06T20:24:05+00:00

Case in point. I thought I was being a nice guy, and let my neighbor log on to my internet from her laptop (on which she is the admin). Now, because of this nifty feature in Win7, she also has her iPod, and her friend's notebook, and sometimes a game console logged onto my internet.

It's true, that ultimately, it was I, the network administrator, who initially allowed one device. I trusted that she would be happy with that. Clearly, she was not.

Then you need to inform your neighbour that she's abused your trust. Change the password and only let her have the new one on condition she agrees not to give it to anyone else - an infringement and she's off the network for good

All this would not have happened if MS actually addressed computer security properly instead of playing at it and the default account set up in Windows was a Standard User not an admin - like Linux and Unix do....
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@CmdrKeene 90,631 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator

2011-09-06T18:11:24+00:00

She doesn't need any skill to get the code on prior versions of windows either. Windows XP even showed the characters. Go even older (about 15 years back to Windows 2000 or NT) and still wasn't "secure", it was just a plain text field in the registry. Not exactly hacking a wifi network to get to it.

If your only sense of security is "hopefully folks are too stupid to know (or Google) how to get this", you probably aren't that secure.

Having said that, I get your point that you want to be able to have guests use your network without just giving them free reign for the foreseeable future. I agree that it's a valid and legitimate request and deserves to be submitted.
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