How to connect to WiFi from Windows 10

tutorial
How to connect to WiFi from Windows 10
Connecting to wireless networks in Windows 10 is an easy and straightforward process, involving a few simple steps. It is true that it depends on whether the wireless router broadcasts the name of the Wi-Fi network or not. However, if it does, connecting to that network is as simple as entering its password and choosing whether you want your Windows 10 PC or device to be visible to other devices in the same network. So without further ado, let's see how to connect to wireless networks on a laptop or tablet with Windows 10: NOTE: The screenshots used in this article are from Windows 10 with May 2019 Update, which is available to all Windows 10 users, for free, starting May 2019.

How to connect your Windows 10 PC or device to WiFi

If a wireless network broadcasts its name (also known as SSID), it is automatically detected by any Windows 10 device that is close enough to the coverage area of that network. You can see that a WiFi network is in range by hovering the mouse cursor over the internet icon from your system tray: it says that "Connections are available."
Connections are available
Connections are available
To access the list of available wireless networks, click or tap the network icon from the Windows 10 system tray, and you should see something like this:
The networks popup from Windows 10
The networks popup from Windows 10
Locate the network to which you want to connect and click or tap on its name. If it is a network you know and you intend to connect to it regularly, you should also check the option that says: "Connect automatically." This way, whenever your Windows 10 PC or device is in that wireless network's range, it automatically connects to it. Then, click or tap Connect.
Connecting to a WiFi network in Windows 10
Connecting to a WiFi network in Windows 10
After you have clicked or tapped on Connect, Windows 10 runs a scan for the security settings of the wireless network. When done, it asks you for the security key. It is the password required by the network to connect to it. Enter it and press Next.
Entering the password of a WiFi network in Windows 10
Entering the password of a WiFi network in Windows 10
If the broadcasting router supports WPS and this feature is enabled, you can also connect by pushing the WPS button on your router.
Choosing to press the WPS button on the WiFi router
Choosing to press the WPS button on the WiFi router
NOTE: If you chose to enter the password for the wireless network, you could double check its accuracy by clicking or tapping the eye-like icon on its right side, before pressing Next.
Double-checking the password
Double-checking the password
Once your Windows 10 PC or device establishes the connection to the wireless network, it asks whether you want to set its location as private or as public. If you choose Yes, you choose to "allow your PC to be discoverable by other PCs and devices on this network." This is what you should do if you are connecting to your home or work wireless network.
Choosing to configure the new WiFi network as a private or public network
Choosing to configure the new WiFi network as a private or public network
If you are connecting to a public wireless network, choose No. If you do not choose anything and close this dialog, Windows 10 sets this new network as public, by default. To learn more about network locations in Windows, read this guide: What are network locations in Windows?. Once the sharing part is over, your Windows 10 PC or device is connected to the wireless network you chose.
Windows 10 connected to the WiFi network
Windows 10 connected to the WiFi network
On the bottom of the network panel, there are also a few other large buttons:
  • Wi-Fi: a click or a tap on the Wi-Fi button enables or disables the wireless card installed on your device
  • Airplane mode: pressing the Airplane mode button disables both the wireless card and any other radio emitter installed, such as Bluetooth chips. Disabling the wireless card or entering the airplane mode means that your device no longer attempts to connect to any network. It also helps to preserve the battery life of your device when you do not work online.
  • Mobile hotspot: once you are connected to the internet, pressing on this button lets you turn your Windows 10 device in a mobile hotspot.
Wi-Fi, Airplane mode, and Mobile hotspot buttons
Wi-Fi, Airplane mode, and Mobile hotspot buttons

How to disconnect from WiFi in Windows 10

If you no longer want to use a particular wireless network you are connected to, you can always disconnect from it. To do that, first open the list of wireless networks, by clicking or tapping on the network icon from the system tray.
Windows 10 showing that it's connected to a WiFi network
Windows 10 showing that it's connected to a WiFi network
In the list of available wireless networks, locate the one you are connected to. That should be easy because, near that WiFi network's name, you see a text like "Connected, secured." Click or tap the Disconnect button.
Disconnect from a WiFi network
Disconnect from a WiFi network
Your Windows 10 PC or device immediately disconnects, and you can now choose to connect to another Wi-Fi network if that's what you want.

How to fix problems with your WiFi in Windows 10

Even if you followed the instructions provided above carefully, issues could arise. If you find yourself unable to connect to your network of choice, and you are sure the security information you entered is precisely correct, check these articles for some useful troubleshooting information:

Did you successfully connect to a wireless network?

As you can see, connecting to a network that broadcasts its name is easy. The steps we mentioned in this article allow you to search for and connect to any wireless network you have access to. However, take care when you are about to connect to an open network in a public place. Usually, such networks do not ask for a security password, and they are free but can put you at risk. Unless you are using a good firewall and antivirus solution, avoid this kind of network.
Discover: Smarthome Networking Tutorials Wi-Fi Windows

Discussion (56)

  1. Slavenka
    Slavenka

    Out brand new HP AiO connected wirelessly with the old modem/router without a modem PIN. How is that possible?

  2. Mike
    Mike

    I am trying to change a Toshiba smart tv from Ethernet to Wireless connection.
    Model No. 43V6863DB.
    I have connected the tv and router via a Ethernet cable.
    My PC is on W10 software.
    My router has a WPS button.
    Can you help me to achieve this please?.

  3. DD
    DD

    You totally skipped over if you don’t have a security key.

  4. Dave
    Dave

    Does not work. How do you solve the ‘No internet secured’ issue?

  5. Joe
    Joe

    If this does not work still then any ideas. I am on line using my old PC that has windows vista. When I use my new PC with windows 10 it tells me the same password I use to get on this PC is not correct. Then for no apparent reason it may connect for a short time then disconnect? At a campground and they have wi-fi and it has a strong signal but windows 10 following the outline here will either not connect or stay connected. Confused….?????

  6. Troy
    Troy

    I cant get a password prompt to ask for the security code? Never encountered this before. Suggestions?

  7. stefan
    stefan

    This is a great tutorial, though my problem is somewhat different. I’m thinking to buy an HP All In One computer that does not have wireless capability built in.
    What can I do to connect my would be pc to my network? The adapters I found
    so fare, supported by window 7 and 8.1. nothing for windows 10. Do you have any
    idea? Thank You!

    1. Codrut Neagu
      Codrut Neagu

      Hi, any adapter that is supported by Windows 8.1 should also work in Windows 10.

  8. Mike
    Mike

    Microsoft is f**KedUp again! I had not wanted to upgrades but the dam* pop hounded me for days and I succumbed. Now no WiFi …. After research I found and deleted registries. But I still can not find where I can configure WiFi. Apparent they have separated WiFi configuration location from that of network. Can someone please tell me where the location is.

    Last time Microsoft hid the familiar start button, now the WiFi. No woder no one want Windows.

  9. michael
    michael

    can’t believe how badly set up windows 10 is. something as simple as connecting to a network after network changed password is insane. a 10 second job on windows 7 took me 30 minutes to figure out on 10. and no tutorial was helpful. i finally had to tell the computer to “forget” the network and then tried to reconnect – only then did the ssid password show up. in other words, there’s no way to EDIT the wireless settings. you have to tell the damn computer to forget and only then try to connect. so glad i only upgraded my son’s computer to 10. my windows 7 pc will remain 7. 7 was set up so well, and everything after has been a disaster.

  10. Soleh
    Soleh

    I even dont have that wifi button to turn it on

  11. Ghassan Antoon
    Ghassan Antoon

    Have just tried a solution for the WIFI problem with windows 10 and it worked. I uninstalled the updated driver and returned to old driver that my PC had before the upgrade and it worked

    1. Kathy
      Kathy

      How do you uninstall windows 10 ?

  12. Fleming S
    Fleming S

    Windows 10 doesn’t appear to support a very normal use case: coffee shop changes wifi password. When I connect, it just errors out and says it can’t connect. There is no obvious way to just enter the new password. I had to forget the network (not easily accessible either, google how to find this on my phone, a decently excessive set of clicks,…) and then reconnect to be able to get to the password prompt… There’s a workaround to make this work, but it took a half hour to get there.

  13. Charlie Bunge
    Charlie Bunge

    Since updating to Windows 10 my laptop losses the Wi-Fi many times a day and I have to run the trouble shooter and I have received the following: Wireless adapter access point, cannot access default gateway, network cable is not properly plugged in or maybe broken. What do I need to do?

  14. Christine Dombek
    Christine Dombek

    How can I check to make sure my wireless card is working, I can’t connect to the Wi-Fi.

  15. amritpal singh
    amritpal singh

    I have bought new HP laptop and installed Windows 10. I am not able to connect to home network (WiFi) after entering security key. I always get message ‘Can’t connect to network’

    1. Vimal
      Vimal

      Hi Amritpal,
      Have you tried network troubleshooting?
      If not try this
      Right click WiFi icon > Network and Sharing center > Change adapter settings > Right click WiFi and select diagnose and follow the prompts.
      Most of the problems gets rectified automatically by this trouble shooting.

  16. Ryan
    Ryan

    I am connected to the wifi but I cannot access it at all even though it shows I am connected it doesn’t seem to activate for my other apps like Skype and Spotify . Please tell me how to solve this issue

  17. Debbie H
    Debbie H

    I installed Windows 10 last week and I had a wireless icon on the tray, bottom R toolbar. When I turned off my computer yesterday and restarted it the icon has disappeared. How can I add the icon back to my tray? I can still get wireless by going through the start button, bottom L, but I prefer the icon.

    1. Vimal
      Vimal

      Hi Debbie,
      You can enable the WiFi icon back in the system tray by doing the following.
      Click the notification area in your task bar.
      then
      All settings > Notifications & actions > Quick actions.
      From there just click or select the icons you want to appear on the task bar.
      Or if the icon doesn’t happen to appear in the list, do the same as above and in Quick actions area click on turn system icons on or off and enable it from there.Hope this works for you. 🙂

  18. Alita leo
    Alita leo

    The Cellular N-Draft PCI Adapter means that you can link wirelessly along with supercharged speed, selection and stability. That 802.11n unit seamlessly links for a wifi network without functionality degradation.
    Visit Dueltek.com.au to learn more.

  19. Tim Pease
    Tim Pease

    windows 10 doesn’t remember my network security key I have to reenter it every time I shutdown and restart, my desktop 10 update works fine.

  20. manda
    manda

    I have been using windows 10 for weeks now with no issues and now all of a sudden it says my network connection is limited and won’t allow me to connect to my WiFi , I have a second computer that I also upgraded and it is running fine. Tried everything to fix it but can’t get WiFi

  21. Danny Murphy
    Danny Murphy

    Hi
    Since I installed W10, I have had no problems using my home broadband, but at work, whenever I try to connect to the work wireless broadband on my laptop, the following address is substituted instead of the page which used to come up which allowed me to sign in …. so no access. https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=219472&clcid=0x409
    Help!

  22. Ron Scott
    Ron Scott

    I have Windows 10 and have no problem seeing my network listed in available networks. My problem is that my laptop no longer connects to my home network automatically upon booting up and I have to keep entering my security key to connect. I think I may have inadvertently changed a setting in my network manager that is causing this but can’t figure out what I may have done. Any advice?

  23. Victor Salmeron
    Victor Salmeron

    This happen to me as well, it wouldn’t let me see the wifi, apparently my wifi adapter was disabled, I just trouble shooted the problem and it enabled my wifi adapter

  24. happy
    happy

    Same thing happened to me. No wireless adapter. I try to configure the wireless adapter but no adapter is listed

  25. MacPac78
    MacPac78

    I have a similar problem to Andreas Karch. I connect to the internet (with Firefox) and it lasts for about 5 minutes. I then try the command prompts and reboot and the connection works again for another 5 minutes. Needless to say I don’t want to keep rebooting every 5 minutes. Any suggestions???

  26. Carl
    Carl

    when I wi-fi connect to my router A message pops up and says “other people might be able to see info you send over this network” how to I protect my network? Left clicking does nothing

  27. Ronal Hall
    Ronal Hall

    Hi just upgraded to windows10, trying to connect to my wi-fi network, it won’t show in list of connections, it does though show up in know networks where you can share or forget, also I don’t get the wi-fi and airplane buttons where you show them or anywhere else! Please help!

  28. Blasie Schauer
    Blasie Schauer

    I did but I figured out the problem we have to take our computer in the wireless adapter is not working properly. Thanks any way

  29. Benton
    Benton

    Codrut, got one for you.
    Got windows 10, but I have nothing that pops up for available networks. I connect thru ethernet fine, however my Netgear wireless usb adapter can’t seem to find anything, I even updated the drivers. Any ideas?

  30. Blasie Schauer
    Blasie Schauer

    I don’t know what is wrong but when I upgraded to windows ten all the sudden my computer can’t connect to wifi and is only Ethernet can I get some help?

    1. Codrut Neagu
      Codrut Neagu

      Did you try everything mentioned in the previous comments?

      1. George William Ddaaki
        George William Ddaaki

        I upgraded to windows 10 and all the wireless networks are listed but I cannot connect to the internet.

    2. Rachel Kachur
      Rachel Kachur

      I found that I had to go to the device manager control panel (type device manager into the search bar on the right hand side of the task bar at the bottom of your screen). Click on device manager (it may say control panel underneath it). Click on arrow for network adapter to expand your options. Find the one that has wireless in the name, right click and choose update drive. That did it for me.

  31. Andreas Karch
    Andreas Karch

    While I can connect fine to the network, windows 10 disconnects from it about every 5 minutes and makes me type in the password again. I clicked the “automatically connect” button, but windows 10 always makes me reconnect to the network by hand. It also apparently forgets the password. I have two identical computers (Dell Inspiron 14). The second one, which is still running windows 8, does not have this problem with the same wireless network. It remembers the password and stays connected.

    1. Codrut Neagu
      Codrut Neagu

      Did you by any chance install a driver software for the wireless card, other than the default Windows 10 driver?
      Open a Task Manager and check your startup programs. If you have anything there related to your wireless card (like Intel Wireless Manager or Realtek or others), disable it. Then reboot and check if the issue still persists.

      1. Andreas Karch
        Andreas Karch

        The startup programs are only things I can recognize – nothing related to WiFi. I think I fixed the problem by “forgetting” the network and connecting again to it from scratch. I should have tried this earlier. I still don’t understand why I had these problems to begin with, but maybe I shouldn’t care.

        1. Codrut Neagu
          Codrut Neagu

          🙂 Everything’s OK if it works!

  32. Clay
    Clay

    No network list comes up and there is no “wireless” button in the tray next to the “airplane mode” button.

    Wireless is on, Windows died connect to trusted networks. There are networks in range broadcasting their SSIDs, I just can’t see a list of them or toggle my wireless adapter.

    1. Codrut Neagu
      Codrut Neagu

      Are you sure that your wireless card is working?
      Run a Command Prompt as administrator and execute this command: ipconfig /all. Then post here the results. Maybe we can find more about your problem.

      1. Clay
        Clay

        I get:

        Host name…: (my computer’s name)
        Primary Dns Suffix…: (blank)
        Node Type…: Hybrid
        IP Routing Enabled…: No
        WINS Proxy Enabled…: No

        Thank you for your help.

        1. Codrut Neagu
          Codrut Neagu

          That’s it?
          You should also have a section called something like “Wireless LAN Adapter …”.
          If you don’t have it, it means the wireless card is not enabled. You must turn it on.

          1. Clay
            Clay

            That’s it.

            There was a typo in my original post, I meant to say that the computer DOES connect to “trusted” wireless networks (that I set up years ago in Windows 8.)

          2. Codrut Neagu
            Codrut Neagu

            Try from the Settings app. Go to Network & Internet -> WiFi.

          3. Clay
            Clay

            When I go to settings> network & internet, I get the following list:

            Airplane Mode
            Data Usage
            VPN
            Dial-up
            Proxy

            I don’t see an item named “WiFi”

          4. Codrut Neagu
            Codrut Neagu

            Launch a Command Prompt as administrator and try these commands:


            reg delete HKCRCLSID{988248f3-a1ad-49bf-9170-676cbbc36ba3} /va /f
            press Enter
            netcfg -v -u dni_dne
            press Enter

            Then close Command Prompt, reboot your computer and check WiFi again.

          5. Clay
            Clay

            When I enter the first line, I get:

            ERROR: Invalid key name.

          6. Codrut Neagu
            Codrut Neagu

            Ah… sorry. I misspelled the command. It should be:
            reg delete HKCRCLSID{988248f3-a1ad-49bf-9170-676cbbc36ba3} /va /f

          7. Clay
            Clay

            Now I get:

            ERROR: The system was unable to find the specified registry key or value.

            …Maybe I am in the wrong directory. Thank you again for your patience.

          8. Clay
            Clay

            Codrut,

            My issue is solved!

            I did a Google search for the command you provided me and found a discussion about them and what they do/are for.

            I didn’t have the Cisco VPN client that that particular registry item came from, but I did remember that I had a disabled VPN Chrome extension.

            I went to my Chrome settings, deleted the extension, rebooted, and now I have a list of networks broadcasting their SSIDs!

            Thank you very much for your help, I am a relatively new Windows user and you helped me on multiple levels!

          9. Codrut Neagu
            Codrut Neagu

            I’m glad you managed to resolve the issue!

          10. Mike
            Mike

            where shouldI check for WiFi? I have done delete but do not see anywhere any reference to WiFi.

    2. Jacky
      Jacky

      I have rhe same problem pls help