Windows PowerShell Commands for Wi-Fi and WLANs

Below is a clean, technician-focused list of the Windows PowerShell commands used for Wi-Fi and WLAN troubleshooting, organized by function. This aligns well with broadband-tech workflows, capture analysis, and WLAN Operations fundamentals.

1. Let’s Start with Discovering Wi-Fi Interfaces & Drivers

Get Wi-Fi NICs & Driver Info

Get-NetAdapter -Physical | Where-Object {$_.Status -eq "Up"}
Get-NetAdapter -Name "Wi-Fi" | Format-List *
Get-NetAdapterAdvancedProperty -Name "Wi-Fi"
Get-NetAdapterHardwareInfo -Name "Wi-Fi"
Get-NetAdapterStatistics -Name "Wi-Fi"
Get-NetAdapterPowerManagement -Name "Wi-Fi"

Driver Version / Capabilities

(Get-NetAdapter -Name "Wi-Fi").DriverInformation

2. Performing Scans for Nearby Wi-Fi Networks

PowerShell has no direct native Wi-Fi scan cmdlet. You use netsh from inside PowerShell. Keep in mind you can also execute these netsh commands in standard Windows Command/Terminal:

Scan

netsh wlan show networks mode=bssid

List Saved Profiles

netsh wlan show profiles

3. Connect / Disconnect / Manage Wi-Fi Profiles in Windows

Remove a Saved Profile

netsh wlan delete profile name="SSID-Name"

Export Profiles (for backup or cloning configs)

netsh wlan export profile key=clear folder="C:\wifi"

Import Profile

netsh wlan add profile filename="C:\wifi\mywifi.xml"

Connect to a Network

netsh wlan connect name="SSID-Name"

Disconnect

netsh wlan disconnect

4. Wi-Fi Radio Control / Interface Control

View WLAN Interface State

netsh wlan show interfaces

Enable / Disable Wi-Fi Interface

Enable-NetAdapter -Name "Wi-Fi"
Disable-NetAdapter -Name "Wi-Fi"

Disable Wi-Fi Radio (Airplane-style troubleshooting)

netsh radio set wlan off
netsh radio set wlan on

5. Advanced WLAN Diagnostics

Show WLAN Report (Generates HTML Diagnostic Report)

netsh wlan show wlanreport

This creates a report found at the following location that you should open in a web browser tab:
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WlanReport\wlan-report-latest.html
Fantastic for troubleshooting roaming, authentication failures, disconnects.

Show WLAN AutoConfig

netsh wlan show autoconfig

Show Drivers and Capabilities

netsh wlan show drivers

This shows:

• Supported 802.11 standards (a/b/g/n/ac/ax)
• Radio types
• Channel widths
• Authentication/cipher suites
• Hosted network support

6. Packet Capture (Built-In ETW Wi-Fi Capture)

(This is extremely useful with Wireshark ETL imports.)

Start Wi-Fi Packet Capture

netsh trace start capture=yes tracefile=c:\temp\wifi.etl scenario=WLAN

Stop Capture

netsh trace stop

Newer PS-Native ETW Cmdlets (Windows 10+)

Get-NetEventSession
New-NetEventSession -Name WifiCapture -CaptureMode SaveToFile -LocalFilePath c:\temp
Add-NetEventProvider -Name Microsoft-Windows-WLAN-AutoConfig -SessionName WifiCapture
Start-NetEventSession -Name WifiCapture
Stop-NetEventSession -Name WifiCapture

7. IP, DNS, DHCP Commands Relevant to WLAN

These aren’t Wi-Fi-specific but used constantly in WLAN troubleshooting.

Show IP Settings

Get-NetIPConfiguration

Release / Renew DHCP

ipconfig /release
ipconfig /renew

Flush DNS Cache

Clear-DnsClientCache

Show DNS Cache

Get-DnsClientCache

8. Wi-Fi Profiles, Authentication, 802.1X

Show 802.1X Auth Config

netsh lan show profiles

Show RADIUS / 802.1X Settings

netsh lan show interfaces

(Useful in enterprise WLANOps scenarios)

9. Network Reset / WLAN Repair Commands

Reset TCP/IP Stack

netsh int ip reset

Reset Winsock

netsh winsock reset

Reset WLAN Profiles

netsh wlan delete profile name=*

10. Wi-Fi Power & Roaming Controls

Set Power Level

Set-NetAdapterAdvancedProperty -Name "Wi-Fi" -DisplayName "Transmit Power" -DisplayValue "Highest"

Set Roaming Aggressiveness

Set-NetAdapterAdvancedProperty -Name "Wi-Fi" -DisplayName "Roaming Aggressiveness" -DisplayValue "Medium"

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Some Bonus Things

Check 6 GHz (Wi-Fi 6E) support

netsh wlan show drivers | findstr "6GHz"

Check supported MCS / spatial streams

Windows hides this, but you get hints from:

netsh wlan show interfaces

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