Windows 7 starts a new network every time I connect my iPhone

well we have 3 iphones here that are regularly plugged in and synced, only 1 has tethering enabled. 1 had in the past tethered but we turned it off. windows sees the phones okay and they are distinct. no issues with itunes seeing them or pulling pictures off in explorer. so i'm not having all the problems you are.

i had 88 network connections a few days ago and deleted them. then had 25 today and deleted them and now have 3 already. basically a new one every time i plug in my iphone.

to check yours go to network and sharing center, theres an icon to the left of your iphone connection and click it, then a window pops up about it, click "merge or delete network locations" and it will show you a list.

i've noticed it takes a lot longer than it used to for windows to see the phone, realize it is a "modem" and pull an ip address. it used to happen in a few seconds, now can take 20+ seconds

are these forums monitored by apple support? is there any where i can open an actual support ticket with them?

i'm seeing this too on my iphone 4 tethered to windows 7 64-bit. iOS 5.0, itunes 10.5.1

i'm thinking its not so much iOS5, but itunes, since the modem/tether drivers are installed when itunes is installed. how widespread is this problem? is apple doing anything about it?

Hi, I can give a little insight in to why this is happening. Sadly, I can't give you a solution. Perhaps my insights might proide Apple with some helpful data.

I have been tethering my iPhone 4 to my Windows 7 PC for some time. When I used iOS 4.x, the network identification was consistent with the USB cable. That is - the first time I connected it, I renamed the connection to give it a meaningful name (not just "network"). I even changed the icon to be an iPhone. Windows correctly identified the phone as the same connection every subsequent time I plugged the phone in.

Something changed with iOS 5.0.1. The problem with iOS 5.X, as described in previous comments is that each time the phone is re-connected, Windows 7 fails to recognize the phone as the same network it was previously connected to. After a bit of digging, I know why this is happening. Windows 7 goes through a series of tests when it connects to a network to try and identify it. If the network is "managed", that is it's part of a windows domain, then there's one set of criteria involving the name of the domain. That isn't the case here, the iPhone tethered connection is considered an "unmanaged" network.

What it boils down to is that windows looks at the MAC address (the hardware address) of the network interface that's acting as the default gateway for the network. Every time it connects to an unmanaged network like this, it looks at the MAC address. If it's already seen that MAC address before, it believes it's the same network that it was previously connected to.

It turns out that each time you connect the iPhone to the PC, the MAC address of the default gateway is different. I think it's random within a certain set of parameters. This is why Windows 7 keeps thinking it's got a different network.

Ok, so how do I know this ? Here is a way you can confirm for yourself that what I'm claiming above is the case:

1. Tether your iPhone. Give the network a distinctive name - say "Test12345" or similar.

2. Open a command prompt on your windows 7 PC - so type "cmd" at the run prompt.

3. Type:

ipconfig /all

This will provide a LOT of information about your network connections. You are looking for the "Default Gateway" parameter. On my phone, the IP address of the default gateway is consistantly 172.20.10.1, my PC gets an IP address of 172.20.10.2 in most cases.

4. Now, still in the command prompt, type:

arp -a

This shows the contents of the Address Resolution Protocol cache (ARP cache). Many of the IP addresses that your PC has connected to will be listed here, including the default gateway address. Along with the IP addresses, the MAC addresses will be listed.

The MAC address will be a set of 6 pairs of hexadecimal numbers. So as an example:

ac-de-48-7d-bd-2f

Remember, it's the MAC address of the default gateway you care about, NOT the MAC address of your PC's network card or similar. Make a note of the relevant MAC address.

5. Untether the phone. Wait a while (2 minutes ?). Tether it again. You should be prompted to identify the network as a new network. Give it a different name that's also distinctive (say Test23456).

6. Again, confirm what the default gateway IP address is (probably still the same as before, probably 172.20.10.1).

7. Type:

arp -a

Again, to see the MAC address. It will be different. Probably the first 6 pairs of values will be the same.

Record this MAC address too.

Every single time I tether my iPhone, the MAC address of the default gateway always looks like this:

ac-de-48-XX-XX-XX

So only the last 6 digits change. So there are 16^6 possible combinations = 16777216....

So even though it's random, you will statistically speaking NEVER hit the same MAC address you had before.

7. Now close the command prompt and launch the registry editor. (regedit.exe). Navigate to this key in the registry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\NetworkList

You will see two subkeys called "Signatures" and "Profiles".

First look in "Signatures", then in to "Unmanaged". Underneath you will see several (or many) further subkeys with very long numeric names. Look in each of these in turn, or search until you find the first MAC address you recorded earlier. Inside each of the numeric named folders, there will be a value named "DefaultGatewayMac". Against this will be the MAC address of the default gateway.

You should find an entry for both the MAC addresses you recorded earlier. It's because the MAC address of the default gateway changes that Windows thinks it's a new network every time.

I don't know for sure, but I'm willing to bet that in iOS4, the MAC address of the default gateway was a constant. It's probably something they changed to accommodate the improvements to the personal hotspot capabilities in iOS 5.x.

8. Now in each of the "profiles" that correspond to the MAC addresses, you will see a value called "ProfileGuid". Now look in the folder called "Profiles" that's on the same level as the registry as the "Signatures" folder. In the "Profiles" key, you will see subkeys corresponding to each ProfileGuid value. Look in the two subkeys that have names matching the ProfileGuid values from your two MAC addresses.

Note that inside those subkeys, you will see values called "ProfileName". Note that they have named like "Test12345" and "Test23456", the names you provided earlier.

So the net result is that the MAC address of the default gateway changes every time you connect, so Windows thinks it's a new network.

So great - what can the users do to fix this ?

I don't know.

The only thing I can think of is a "brute force" approach to create every possible

signature... so

ac-de-48-00-00-00

ac-de-48-00-00-01

ac-de-48-00-00-02

...

ac-de-48-FF-FF-FE

ac-de-48-FF-FF-FF

That would take HOURS to do even as a script and mean there would be 16,777,216 entries in the registry... so since each one is around 100 bytes of information, that would mean your regisry would grow by 1.6 GB in size or so.... that's just not realistic.

So far as I know, there is no way to put wildcards in the signatures section..... pity.....

The best fix would be for apple to fix the iPhone tethering so it has a consistent MAC address.

Apple ? Any chance of such a change ?

UPDATE and (Kind of) Workaround:

I did some more digging in to this and I do have a workaround, but it has an unpleasant side effect.

Note that implementing this workaround requires you to edit the windows registry and make changes. If you are not experienced at doing so, USE EXTREME CAUTION. Editing the registry of Windows is very much an advanced operation. It gives you immense power to change the behaviour of your windows machine, but it also brings with it the ability to really mess up your system. The basic advice on the registry is: "If you are not sure what something does in there, DO NOT CHANGE IT". That said, the change here is pretty simple, just wanted to warn people who are not familiar with the Windows Registry.

Basically you can change the properties for the iPhone USB network interface so that Windows does not even try to identify it at all. It just ignores the connection in terms of attempting to classify it. This does mean that you no longer get a dialogue box popping up asking you to classify the network. It also means you will no longer get lots of Network locations (Network 1, Network 2,....., Network 27...).

The down side is that the icon in the task trey says you are not actually connected to a network AT ALL. If the tethered iPhone is the only network you have, the network and sharing centre in Windows says you are not connected. Despite this, you are able to connect normally to the internet. It seems to treat the network like a public network in terms of firewall, but it's hard to be sure.

I got this information from various pages about using VM Ware, this page is a good example:

http://robboek.com/2008/12/18/vmware-unidentified-network-issue-in-vista-and-win dows-server-2008-fix/

It centres around a registry key that controls wether a network adapter is considered a "proper" adapter by windows, or if it's some kind of virtual device that isn't really a network adapter. This Microsoft Technote explains the technical detail:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/ff557037%28v=vs.85%29.a spx

The key is located here in the windows registry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E972-E325-11CE-BF C1-08002BE10318}\

In this key, there are several subkeys with 4 digit values. On my PC, they range from 0000 to 0019. Each represents a network interface device, or some other device on the system that has network related properties. In my case, because the last device I added when I re-installed windows was the drivers to tether my iPhone, the iPhone adapter is under the last key (0019), but on other PCs, it may be in one of the other subkeys.

You can determine which key is the iPhone tethered adapter by looking through the folders, looking at the values of "DriverDesc". Loook for a setting of "Apple Mobile Device Ethernet".

Once you have the correct subkey, if you want to mark the device so that windows network identification will ignore it, you need to add a new DWORD value. To do this, find an empty area in the right panel of regedit and select NEW -> DWORD (32-bit) Value.

The name of the string value must be:

*NdisDeviceType

Note that the name MUST startwith an asterisk (*). The name must be **exactly** as above.

THe value you assign to this can either be 0 or 1. If it's 0, which is the default, then windows believes this device is a "proper" network interface. It attempts to identify it when connected and we have the problem described in previous postings. Before you add this key, windows uses the default of 0, which means it DOES try to identify the network.

If you set the value to 1, windows believes it's not really truly a network interface and never attempts to identify it. You can still connect to it though to get to the internet.

Any time you make changes to this value, you must disable and then re-enable the network adapter. To do this, go to the "Change Adapter Settings" section of the network and sharing centre. Right click on the adapter, select "Disable". Wait a few seconds, then right click again and "Enable" it.

With the value of this new key set to 1, you should NOT be prompted to identify the iPhone when it connects.

All other network interfaces will continue to prompt you, so if you connect to a wireless network at a cafe, or plug your laptop in to wired Ethernet at a hotel, it will behave as before. This change will only affect connections by the iPhone.

You can go and delete all the "excess" networks that have built up over the many connections of your iPhone (using "merge or delete network locations"). This is a one-time thing, because from now on, it will not create any more network locations.

This isn't a great solution though, because the side effect as I said is that the icon in the task trey for windows will say you are disconnected from the network (unless you have another connection). So personally, I think this is more annoying than living with the creation of many unwanted network locations. I still thought it's worth posting this though, because for some other people, they might actually prefer this behaviour.

You can try this and see how you like it. If you want to undo it, just edit the value you created to have a value of 0 and disable/enable the network interface. Of you can delete the value completely and disable/enable the interface. Only try it though if you are comfortable editing the windows registry.

I've tried a couple of other ideas I had to try and solve this - for example, by editing the advanced properties under the IP4 configuration for the network adapter, I tried forcing all connections to have a DNS suffix of "iphone". I was hoping this might make windows think that the connection was a "managed" connection, thus enabling me to manually create a key under the "managed" section of the network profiles with the properties I want. Sadly, this didn't work at all.

I'm still looking in to this. If I find anything else helpful, I'll be sure to post it here. At the minute though, this workaround is the best I can come up with.

Any experts on ARP or Network Identification out there with a better idea ?

Apple - Any chance of you fixing the underlying problem in the iPhone ? That would still be the best solution if we could just lock the MAC address of the default gateway while tethering to be a constant value.

Thanks.

Hi,

I was quite excited when I saw your post, iNescafe. I hadn't thought to try that. I did try creating one with a DefaultGatewayMac of ac de 48 00 00 00, but I didn't try one with just ad de 48.

I just tried it now and I can't get it to work. I am using Windows 7 x64, rather than Vista x64, but I would have hoped it would work the same way. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.

The exact method I used was:

------------------------------

1. Connect the iPhone, name the network nicely (I called it iPhone (USB)).

2. Disconnect the iPhone.

3. Find the appropriate signature under the registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\NetworkList\Signatures\Unmanaged\<<GUID OF SIGNATURE - BASICALLY RANDOM NUMBER>>

4. Then I looked for the Value named "DefaultGateWayMac". It had a value of ac de 48 fc 03 30 in this instance. It's a binary value, not a string value, so in this case, you can't put hyphens in there. I know the normal convention is to write MAC addresses as:

ac-de-48-fc-03-30

but here, because it's a binary value, it appears as:

ac de 48 fc 03 30

5. I changed the binary value to be:

ac de 48

6. I then re-connected the iPhone. Unfortunately, it asked me to identify the network and when I did so, it created a new profile.

------------------------------

Can you clarify exactly what you did to resolve this ? Ideally with screenshots ?

Thanks again for the idea, I just can't get it to work.

Message was edited by: Spencer Flibble, to balance the brackets in step 1.

I sure feel like an idiot, posting too early.

As you guessed, I went for simply using the 3 bytes AC DE 48 hex value, but my test cycle was flawed and the settings didn't survive a simple reboot of the computer.

1. Connect the phone and let auto-detection happen.

2. Change the DefaultGatewayMac.

3. Disconnect the phone, turn tethering off then power-cycle it.

4. Turn tethering on, reconnect the phone and let auto-detection happen once again.

Some caching was likely involved in NLA by not disconnecting the phone before editing the registry.

Anyway, be assured I will keep on trying on my side, and post my findings here too.

Sorry for the wrong hope.

I just read the update from HiHoSystems, and I'm running the same (Win7, iPhone 4S on iOS6, both fully up to date), so I checked my network settings and sure enough, I'm connected to 'Paul's iPhone 4S', not 'Paul's iPhone 4S 3246'!

Thanks Apple, you finally fixed it!

Now perhaps you could make the Hotspot feature slightly less annoying to use, by:

i. Allowing you to enable the provision of a Wi-Fi Hotspot separately from enabling the connection to another Wi-Fi network

ii. Making the user interface show that the Wi-Fi Hotspot has timed out

Currently, in order to provide a Wi-Fi Hotspot, you have to enable Wi-Fi - it's the same setting as you use to connect to another Wi-Fi network. And, if the Wi-Fi Hotspot isn't used for a little while, it switches itself off - fair enough, as it does kill the battery. However, when this happens, my iPhone always then tries to connect to my neighbour's Wi-Fi network which it can just about 'see' from my house, but which is just too far away to actually use. So then I have to disable Wi-Fi, disable Hotspot, then re-enable the Hotspot and the Wi-Fi so that I can reconnect something to my Wi-Fi Hotspot.

If you could enable normal Wi-Fi and the Wi-Fi Hotspot separately, & when the Wi-Fi Hotspot timed out, if you could see that it had gone off & perhaps just switch it back on, it would be a lot easier and more intuitive to use!

But still, I'm grateful that the original issue has been resolved!

I am having the exact same problem - Is it a Windows 7 issue or a Apple ios5.01 problem??

I saw on other posts that strange devices such as Nokia??? are doing the same..

There was a Itunes update just through has that fixed the problem???

Just checked now - Nope still does it.....