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

I don't understand how revealing a password to a PC's superuser is a security flaw.  Did you know that Windows Vista and Windows 7 offer the same "flaw" to 56K dial-up users as well?  It's true: It's been there, in the OS, for nigh on four years now.

The wisdom of doing so is clearly up for debate, but the feature neither adds nor compromises a properly managed PC's or network's security.  Anyone with administrator rights on a wirelessly-connected PC can learn its connection keys trivially, whether through a built-in tool such as this feature or a third-party tool found by a trivial Web search.

It is the network administrator's responsibility to regulate which systems can access his network, when, and how, but that responsibility does not extend to those systems' users.  It's the system administrators of each system who are responsible for regulating which users can access those systems and regulating which networks their users can connect to.  In most companies, those two responsibilities are carried by the same person or the same department, but they are separate responsibilities.  In homes, those responsibilities should be carried by the heads of household or a single trusted family member, but through user ignorance the responsibility of system administration, separate from network administration, often falls to the primary users instead.

When you allow a system to connect to your network, wirelessly or otherwise, you must trust that the system's administrator will not compromise the security of your network by disclosing any network connection credentials.  The only way you can do this, if you don't trust that system's users, is to prevent any of them from being that system's administrators.

In a home network scenario where you're that network's administrator, the best way is exactly according to the post accepted as the answer: Become the system's administrator, and make all its other users limited account users.

And occasionally change the wireless network's password, as should be done with any password.

Edit:

A reasonably secure alternative, in the case of outside contractors or consultants needing access to your network from their own wireless-enabled laptops, is to create a separate wireless network connected via ethernet to your main network, for which a separate wireless key is required for access.  Just monitor this separate wireless segment for abuse, and you can take action to curb or remove potential abuse by the outsiders without affecting the operation of your internal network, and without anyone outside needing to learn your inside's wireless credentials.

Windows Genuine Advantage disadvantaged my genuine Windows. Posted from genuine Ubuntu.

I'm at a loss as to how this question has generated responses along the lines of dealing with the issue by securing the laptop administrative account.  This doesn't solve the issue at all.

As mentioned above, if you have a situation on a small business network where you have a mixture of employees and consultants and use a wireless network you are vulnerable.  Since it's typically a business policy that consultants provide their own laptops, they will most likely have administrative access to their laptops or an administrator of their company will.

One concerned about security should see the importance of limiting the exposure of credentialed information whether that be user credentials or network credentials.  I can understand providing the option to show characters when created the connection but it should never never never be displayed once it is saved. 

It would appear to me that this should be considered a bug, a security flaw that Microsoft needs to resolve.

We are having the same problems here in our school. The only option we can think right now is to disallow windows 7 users from accessing or wifi. I have the same sentiment as RRRRyan.Ü A lot of our students will be forced to reinstall windows xp or vista. If in case you guys will find a "fix/solution" to this flaw please email me at *** Email address is removed for privacy ***. I really need a solution for this. Thanks.Ü

How?  Do you care other people connect directly to your internal network?  Knowing your WPA password is an invitation to your internal network --- and remotely! 

Rubbish! Sorry, you are SO PARANOID it's unbeleivable. If all your Users are Standard users with strong passwords then the possibility of casual incursion is almost NIL!

I'm not going to bother to argue with you any more. Goodbye and I hope you have a large stock of tinfoil hats.

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Are you joking.  Hope you still read this.  For a small business that has employees who own there own PCs, you can't take them out of the admin group.  Think outside of your own world.