Unidentified network on Windows
December 11, 2019 10:16 PM Subscribe
I recently noticed that when I hover my mouse over the network icon in my taskbar of my desktop computer (running Windows), I get two networks that show up. The first is my regular network, connected via Ethernet, which says "internet access," while the second just says "Unidentified network" with "no internet access."
When I click on the icon I get a little more information - the new network says "Unidentified Network" and "Limited." When I further click on the link that says "Connection Settings" only my regular network shows up.
Does anyone have any guesses as to what this mysterious new network might be? Or ideas about how to find out?
When I do the same mouse-hovering on a second computer, which is only connected via WiFi, I see only my regular network, not the mystery network.
When I click on the icon I get a little more information - the new network says "Unidentified Network" and "Limited." When I further click on the link that says "Connection Settings" only my regular network shows up.
Does anyone have any guesses as to what this mysterious new network might be? Or ideas about how to find out?
When I do the same mouse-hovering on a second computer, which is only connected via WiFi, I see only my regular network, not the mystery network.
Any chance you ever tethered the computer to a phone?
posted by praemunire at 12:13 AM on December 12, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by praemunire at 12:13 AM on December 12, 2019 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: I have tethered both computers to a phone in the past. I did check to make sure that tethering was off, and it is.
posted by Umami Dearest at 12:42 AM on December 12, 2019
posted by Umami Dearest at 12:42 AM on December 12, 2019
Best answer: Try Control Panel -> network and sharing center -> change adapter setting and see if that tells you anything. My vpn connection shows up there.
posted by Ferrari328 at 4:09 AM on December 12, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Ferrari328 at 4:09 AM on December 12, 2019 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Try Control Panel -> network and sharing center -> change adapter setting
Oh, that's exactly what I was looking for! It turns out that the phantom network is an "Npcap Loopback Adapter." It's most probably part of some development debugging framework I installed rather than malware, which is what I was mainly concerned about. And it's easy enough to disable. Thanks!
posted by Umami Dearest at 5:57 AM on December 12, 2019
Oh, that's exactly what I was looking for! It turns out that the phantom network is an "Npcap Loopback Adapter." It's most probably part of some development debugging framework I installed rather than malware, which is what I was mainly concerned about. And it's easy enough to disable. Thanks!
posted by Umami Dearest at 5:57 AM on December 12, 2019
Npcap Loopback Adapter.
If you have Wireshark or some other network packet sniffer, it's likely it was installed along with that.
posted by Fidel Cashflow at 6:05 AM on December 12, 2019 [2 favorites]
If you have Wireshark or some other network packet sniffer, it's likely it was installed along with that.
posted by Fidel Cashflow at 6:05 AM on December 12, 2019 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: I've got VM Virtualbox, Vagrant, Docker - I'm guessing it's part of the setup for debugging one of them.
posted by Umami Dearest at 6:19 AM on December 12, 2019
posted by Umami Dearest at 6:19 AM on December 12, 2019
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by tavegyl at 11:38 PM on December 11, 2019 [1 favorite]