A laptop may be used to connect to many wireless networks with a unique Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA), Wi-Fi Protected Access II (WPA2), or Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) key, which can be regarded as a Wifi password, for each of those networks stored within a wireless profile on the laptop. If you need to configure another device, e.g., a phone, tablet or another laptop, to use the same key and want to view what has been stored on the laptop from a command prompt, under Windows 8 you can use the command
netsh wlan show profiles to view all of the
stored Wi-Fi profiles.
C:\>netsh wlan show profiles
Profiles on interface Wi-Fi:
Group policy profiles (read only)
---------------------------------
<None>
User profiles
-------------
All User Profile : belkin54g
All User Profile : Imp
All User Profile : Harbor
All User Profile : Guest
All User Profile : library
All User Profile : T28J7
All User Profile : NETGEAR
All User Profile : linksysYou can then retrieve the key used for a particular profile by specifying
it with name=profile, where profile is one of
the stored profiles, followed by key=clear.
C:\>netsh wlan show profiles name=T28J7 key=clear
Profile T28J7 on interface Wi-Fi:
=======================================================================
Applied: All User Profile
Profile information
-------------------
Version : 1
Type : Wireless LAN
Name : T28J7
Control options :
Connection mode : Connect manually
Network broadcast : Connect only if this network is broadcasting
AutoSwitch : Do not switch to other networks
Connectivity settings
---------------------
Number of SSIDs : 1
SSID name : "T28J7"
Network type : Infrastructure
Radio type : [ Any Radio Type ]
Vendor extension : Not present
Security settings
-----------------
Authentication : Open
Cipher : WEP
Security key : Present
Key Content : 719DDAB7A9
Key Index : 1
Cost settings
-------------
Cost : Unrestricted
Congested : No
Approaching Data Limit : No
Over Data Limit : No
Roaming : No
Cost Source : Default
C:\>netsh wlan show profiles name=Harbor key=clear
Profile Harbor on interface Wi-Fi:
=======================================================================
Applied: All User Profile
Profile information
-------------------
Version : 1
Type : Wireless LAN
Name : Harbor
Control options :
Connection mode : Connect automatically
Network broadcast : Connect only if this network is broadcasting
AutoSwitch : Do not switch to other networks
Connectivity settings
---------------------
Number of SSIDs : 1
SSID name : "Harbor"
Network type : Infrastructure
Radio type : [ Any Radio Type ]
Vendor extension : Not present
Security settings
-----------------
Authentication : WPA2-Personal
Cipher : CCMP
Security key : Present
Key Content : ccc777cc
Cost settings
-------------
Cost : Unrestricted
Congested : No
Approaching Data Limit : No
Over Data Limit : No
Roaming : No
Cost Source : DefaultIn the above two examples, the WEP key for the wireless network with an SSID of "T28J7" is "719DDAB7A9" and the WPA2-Personal key for the wireless network named "Harbor" is "ccc777cc"
