The following tutorial explains how you can export and import Wlan profiles under Windows natively. A third party program is not required.

Please note that you need to run commands on Windows’ command prompt. Windows 7 users can check out the following alternative that is available in their operating system: How to Backup and Import Wireless Network Settings in Windows 7. Users running other versions of Windows can take a look at the third party tool Wireless Migrator.

Copy Wlan Profiles

Use the keyboard shortcut Windows-R to open the run box. Enter cmd and tap on the enter key to open the command prompt window. The first thing you may want to do is to display all Wlan profiles configured on the system. The command netsh wlan show profiles does that.

Locate the Wlan profile that you want to copy. You can identify them by their profile name, which should be identical to the Wlan’s SSID. Run the following command to export the Wlan profile on your system: netsh wlan export profile name=”SSID” folder=”c:\wlanbackup”. Note that the folder needs to exist prior to running the command; an error message is displayed otherwise.

You can now copy the saved Wlan profile to another computer system. Open a command prompt window on the device afterwards and run the following command to import the copied Wlan profile on the system: netsh wlan add profile filename=”e:\Wi-Fi-SSID.xml”. Replace SSID with the Wlan’s identifier and the drive letter and folder as well. Repeat the steps for all devices that you want to connect to the Wlan.

You can backup the wireless network settings from Windows 7 and these settings can be easily saved to a USB stick. You simply use the USB stick to import the settings to laptops and desktops added to your network, even if they are using XP or Vista. To do this, follow these simple steps and set your network up for a no-hassle system.

Click the wireless network symbol from the taskbar and then click “Open Network and Sharing Center.” Alternatively, you may go to the Start Menu and open the Control Panel > Network and Internet > Network and Sharing Center.

In the left control pane, you will see “Manage wireless networks”. Click on this and it will open the Manage Wireless Networks window. Here you will see a list of all wireless networks to which you have connected in the past.

In this example, only a single network is listed. That is because all other networks were intentionally removed for security reasons. This is not normally necessary, but should you decide to delete a network, simply highlight it and press Delete.

Double-click the network that you want to manage and a window showing all of its properties will be presented.

Click the bottom blue link next to the Windows shield in order to save these network settings to a USB flash drive. The flash drive that you choose does not need to have a high capacity. Preferably, use a 1-2GB flash drive and use it solely for the purpose of importing network settings. Once you click the link to copy the network profile, the Copy Network Settings wizard will initiate.

Now plug in your flash drive and wait just a moment while the drive is detected. When the drive is detected, the Next button will turn blue. Click the Next button when it is ready. The settings will only take a matter of seconds to copy to the flash drive. When it is done, click Close.

If you go to the Computer Panel and double-click your flash drive, you will see one new folder, “SMRTNTKY” and you will also see a new file called “setupSNK.exe”. These are the saved network settings, so do not delete them.

To import the Wireless Network Settings, first plug the flash drive in a laptop or other USB accessible device, such as a printer, which you want to add to your network. To keep it simple, let us say it is a laptop. The Wireless Setup Wizard will launch. Click on Yes and the settings will be automatically imported. You will most likely receive a notification of this. Click OK and the laptop is now connected to the network. You can use this for multiple computer additions to your network without the need for going through an extensive setup procedure. This is very helpful indeed and saves time.

Wireless Migrator, a software program for the Windows operating system, comes to the rescue. The portable software program can be used to backup and restore wireless networks easily. All that needs to be done to backup the wireless settings of a computer system is to execute the program after downloading and unpacking it. It will automatically scan for configured wireless networks and save them to the same directory.

The filename will usually be RestoreWireless.wnb which can be executed on the target computer to install all wireless profiles on that system as well. This will add all wireless networks to that computer system as well without having to setup and configure these manually.

The commands to backup and restore wireless network profiles on the command prompt are netsh wlan export profile name=”name” folder=”folder” and netsh wlan add profile filename=”name” just in case you are asking. Regular users however will never discover this possibility and that’s where Wireless Migrator comes into play. Actually it’s of course also helpful for tech savvy users who want to speed up the process.

The software comes as an executable named BackupWireless.exe that automatically creates the backup RestoreWireless.wnb of all wireless network profiles upon execution. Executing RestoreWireless.wnb will restore the wireless network profile on the computer.

The tool wants to register the wnb file extension at first start. To remove those Registry settings use the switch BackupWireless.exe /remove. To restore a wireless network profile without registered file extension use the command BackupWireless.exe RestoreWireless.wnb. A tool cannot be easier than this one, great work.