Can not disable Virtual Wifi adapter after wireless driver update

[PVone1]

I have Lenovo X220 notebook (Core i5), Windows 7 SP1 x64. I had Lenovo wireless driver package 15.03.1000.163 (driver 15.3.1.2). I wanted to disable the virtual WiFi hosted network feature due a security reasons by netsh commands:

netsh wlan stop hostednetwork

netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=disallow

That worked as expected, the "Microsoft Virtual WiFi Miniport Adapter" has disappeared from Device Manager and it also persisted after reboot. No issue yet.

After updating the driver to Lenovo package 15.6.1 (driver 15.4.1.1) I can see two virtual wifi adapters in Device Manager now:

Microsoft Virtual WiFi Miniport Adapter

Microsoft Virtual WiFi Miniport Adapter # 2

Disabling it by these netsh commands above no longer works (no error reported, but it still remains in Allowed state). I have tried to disable and delete them, reboot, uninstall the driver completely and reinstall ... still the same result. Reverting back to the previous driver 15.03.1000.163 solves it but I would prefer to have the most recent one. 

[Jose_H_Intel1]

Hello puppy,

In this case we suggest you to contact the computer manufacturer or Microsoft* since the customization you are trying to accomplish is directly applied on the Microsoft* Virtual driver.

[PVone1]

That would result in ping pong between two parties

Let me rephrase the question, is possible to track what (Intel) wireless drivers are the origin of their "virtual wifi" children ? Because there is connection between the Intel wireless driver and number of virtual wifi adapters created. AFAIK the virtual wifi feature support has to be implemented in the wireless driver so the driver might cause the issue.

EDIT: As I expected, http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itpronetworking/thread/1a23a652-2255-4949-b620-f983e5831592 Microsoft support is routing the question to Intel forum

[Jose_H_Intel1]

Let me check about this. What is the Intel® wireless adapter model?

[PVone1]

Centrino Advanced 6205 (Core i5 2520M)

[Jose_H_Intel1]

In this case our suggestion is to use the older driver for this purpose. A newer driver package will only update the Intel® Proset utility and not the base driver itself for the Intel® Centrino Advanced-N 6205.

Intel® PROSet/ Wireless Software Downloads

http://www.intel.com/support/wireless/wtech/proset-ws/sb/CS-034041.htm http://www.intel.com/support/wireless/wtech/proset-ws/sb/CS-034041.htm

[PVone1]

The old package contains driver 15.3.1.2 while the recent one 15.4.1.1. Does it mean there is no change ? The only reason for update is that Lenovo states "Fixed a security vulnerability issue." in the new package containing the 15.4.1.1 driver. Can you be more specific what security issue has been fixed ?

If none, there is no reason to update for me. Thanks.

[Jose_H_Intel1 · Accepted solution]

We have not had any reports about security vulnerability issues since driver version 9. You may want to ask Lenovo about their statement.

I may actually need to correct myself regarding my last post. Please take a look at the tables posted in the article below so you will see what driver installs from a particular software package.

Intel® PROSet Wireless Software driver versions by Operating System

http://www.intel.com/support/wireless/wlan/sb/CS-034315.htm http://www.intel.com/support/wireless/wlan/sb/CS-034315.htm

[PVone1]

joe_intel wrote:

We have not had any reports about security vulnerability issues since driver version 9. You may want to ask Lenovo about their statement.

Thanks. I already did with usual no reply. I don't have any reason to update then.