What privileges do I need to disable network adapter in Windows 7?

From time to time my Lenovo notebook has problem to connect to wifi network after waking from stand by or hibernation. The only fix (besides reboot) is to disable and enable wifi network adapter.

Windows 7 wants me to provide administrator credentials for this, which is pretty annoying.

Is it possible to add some permissions to my regular profile to be able to disable/enable without entering admin credentials? What permissions would that be?

David Skyba

Posted 2011-10-11T21:08:52.903

Reputation: 123

1Doesn't that machine have a switch or a key combination that can do so at the hardware level? – John Gardeniers – 2011-10-11T21:12:25.350

Yes it has, but that does not help. Somehow the Lenovo SW/BIOS is too smart and does not disable adapter in Windows when I flip the switch :-( – None – 2011-10-11T21:19:53.277

Answers

Yes it is possible.

To disable network cards you need to add the user account to the Windows group called Network Configuration Operators.

In this Microsoft article you can get more information about this group:

A Description of the Network Configuration Operators Group

Administrator rights are not required.

Also, you can manually change this right using gpedit.msc and modifing the setting

USER CONFIGURATION / ADMINISTRATIVE TEMPLATE / NETWORK CONNECTION / Ability to enable/disable a LAN connection

Ricardo Polo

Posted 2011-10-11T21:08:52.903

Reputation: 436

Hmm, interesting, I already am a member of Network Configuration Operators Group... When I try to disable adapter with my credentials, it says that "connection may have been initiated by another user or the system account." That could be true, as I do the disable/enable cycle with admin. credentials. Tomorrow I will try it again after clean reboot, when connection should be hopefully initiated with my credentials. – David Skyba – 2011-10-12T23:33:38.117

@David Tell us if it works. Check my edit in this answer. – Ricardo Polo – 2011-10-13T00:19:08.080

I tried group policy setting, but without success. (GP changed under administrator, then restart.) It seems there is something wrong with the computer setup (this is company machine). – David Skyba – 2011-10-14T07:58:30.303

@David It seens like something specific to your computer and the way it takes the group policies, i recommend you to troubleshoot this other issue start another question. – Ricardo Polo – 2011-10-14T16:33:13.850

I can think of two ways of achieving what you want:

Personally, i'd use the former rather than the latter, but that lowers the overall security of Windows 7 (which was a big selling point over previous versions of the same operating system).

Using the latter solution, you want to add your user to the "Administrators" group.

This effectively renders your user account an administrative one.

ItsGC

Posted 2011-10-11T21:08:52.903

Reputation: 111

The whole point of my question is not to degrade system security. That is why I am trying to assign just the necessary granular privileges to my ordinary account. – David Skyba – 2011-10-11T22:35:42.857

research into group policies then. My expertise lies mostly into *nix systems so i'm afraid i can't point you precisely in the right direction. As an undocumented hunch, i don't think Windows privilege system is that granular. I'll look into it tomorrow if this is still unanswered. – ItsGC – 2011-10-11T22:53:02.570

Get AppSense and their user rights management. User is a just a user but you can elevate their permission for anything - like changing wifi or installing certain apps. They find the balance between usability and security.

trey

Posted 2011-10-11T21:08:52.903

Reputation: 11