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Answered by:
How do I Disable Wifi
90 Direct SSID Broadcasting?
Points
Top 15%

RyanWilli
Archived Forums > Windows 10 Networking
Joined Aug
2016

RyanWilli's threads
Question
1 Show activity
 So my PC (running Windows 10 Pro 1511) is broadcasting a
SSID "DIRECT_XX<MyPcName>UUWm" over wifi. After some
research I suspect it is caused by WiFi direct on my system.
The problem is that I am not permitted to have a rogue AP
3 due to security and interference issues and this looks like I
Sign in just set up a rogue AP. I have checked ipconfig and
to vote
determined what interface it is on (Wireless LAN adapter
Local Area Connection* 13). I also can not find a option in the
gui to disable wifi direct.

How can I disable my pc hosting a wifi connection for wifi

direct? I would prefer to use the GUI because i have had
changes I have made via CLI get reverted during updates
(Because Windows 10) but I am not afraid to use the CLI if
that is my best
option.

Monday, August 22, 2016 6:23 PM

RyanWilli 90 Points

Answers

After reading Kate Li's post I found the commands to

disable Wifi Direct SSID Broadcasting. The commands
are below.

7 1: Go to command prompt as admin and

type as “netsh
Sign in wlan stop hostednetwork” (without
quotes).

to vote
2: Then type “netsh wlan set
hostednetwork mode=disallow”
(without quotes as
well)..

Marked as answer by
RyanWilli
Wednesday, August 24, 2016 11:17 PM
Unmarked as answer by
RyanWilli
Wednesday, August 24, 2016 11:19 PM
Proposed as answer by
Kate Li Microsoft employee
Thursday, August 25, 2016 11:43 AM
Marked as answer by
Kate Li Microsoft employee
Wednesday, September 7, 2016 2:22 AM

Wednesday, August 24, 2016 11:17 PM

RyanWilli 90 Points
All replies
 Hi,

There's no such GUI to do this in Windows 10.

We can only disable the wifi direct via command line as I

2
known. Thanks for you understanding.
Sign in
to vote
In addition, we can submit the feedback on this feature in
Feedback hub app.

Please remember to mark the replies as an answers if

they help and
unmark them if they provide no help.

If you have feedback for TechNet Subscriber Support,

contact tnmff@microsoft.com.

Edited by
Kate Li Microsoft employee
Wednesday, August 24, 2016 4:47 PM

Wednesday, August 24, 2016 4:47 PM

Kate Li (MSFT) 48,350 Points

After reading Kate Li's post I found the commands to

disable Wifi Direct SSID Broadcasting. The commands
are below.

7 1: Go to command prompt as admin and

type as “netsh
Sign in wlan stop hostednetwork” (without
quotes).

to vote
2: Then type “netsh wlan set
hostednetwork mode=disallow”
(without quotes as
well)..

Marked as answer by
RyanWilli
Wednesday, August 24, 2016 11:17 PM
Unmarked as answer by
RyanWilli
Wednesday, August 24, 2016 11:19 PM
Proposed as answer by
Kate Li Microsoft employee
Thursday, August 25, 2016 11:43 AM
Marked as answer by
Kate Li Microsoft employee
Wednesday, September 7, 2016 2:22 AM

Wednesday, August 24, 2016 11:17 PM

 RyanWilli 90 Points

Hi,

You are right to get the command line tool.

Is there any further questions?

1
Sign in
to vote Please remember to mark the replies as an answers if
they help and unmark them if they provide no help.

If you have feedback for TechNet Subscriber Support,

contact tnmff@microsoft.com.

Thursday, August 25, 2016 11:43 AM

Kate Li (MSFT) 48,350 Points

That is the wrong answer.

WiFi-DIRECT SID broadcasts are an artifact of allowing the

PC to be projected to.
43
There IS a GUI for turning this on and off:
Sign in
to vote
Settings -> Projecting to this PC -> set to "Always OFF"

Proposed as answer by
pranjal3029
Tuesday, August 1, 2017 7:00 PM

Monday, September 12, 2016 10:31 AM

WoodyWoodyWoody Microsoft 215 Points

 That is the wrong answer.

WiFi-DIRECT SID broadcasts are an artifact of allowing

the PC to be projected to.
9
Sign in There IS a GUI for turning this on and off:
to vote

Settings -> Projecting to this PC -> set to "Always OFF"

I signed up here to thank you, this solved it for me. I did try
Kate Li's CMD commands on my PC by running the CMD as
Administrator but that didn't turn off the DIRECT network.
This did. 

Edited by
pranjal3029
Tuesday, August 1, 2017 7:00 PM

Tuesday, August 1, 2017 7:00 PM

pranjal3029 50 Points

This did it for me as well. Bravo WoodyWoodyWoody!

Thursday, September 21, 2017 6:46 PM

2
Sign in
to vote

Johnny D117 15 Points

 That is the wrong answer.

WiFi-DIRECT SID broadcasts are an artifact of allowing

2 the PC to be projected to.
Sign in
to vote There IS a GUI for turning this on and off:

Settings -> Projecting to this PC -> set to "Always OFF"

I signed up here to thank you, this solved it for me. I

did try Kate Li's CMD commands on my PC by running
the CMD as Administrator but that didn't turn off the
DIRECT network. This did. 

Now the questions that remain are:

1) how come it became turned on in the first place (I

haven't installed anything but Microsoft updates recently)

2) how do we get assured that it won't happen again?

The way it went with me was a serious security flaw which,

had it been on almost any other PC than my sofa-laptop,
would have required filing a GDPR incident report within
72h. had this happened next June :-(

Thursday, April 12, 2018 7:54 PM

Kehvax 10 Points

That is the wrong answer.

WiFi-DIRECT SID broadcasts are an artifact of allowing

the PC to be projected to.
1
Sign in There IS a GUI for turning this on and off:
to vote

Settings -> Projecting to this PC -> set to "Always OFF"

I created an account just to upvote this as well, and to let

another poor soul with this exact problem find the CLEAR
answer on this thread. I didn't bother with the command
line syntax the other user posted before I scrolled down
and read this first.
I actually was able to self-troubleshoot
by disabling settings that I don't normally use on this PC.
by disabling settings that I don t normally use on this PC.
Things like: Shared Experiences (which is supposed to
mimic Apple's handoff feature for iOS and MacOS),
Projecting to this PC (which isn't even supported on
this
laptops current hardware), Remote Desktop (do I even need
to give a reason why?), and everything else in the System
section I never use that is a huge security hole. It's a good
thing I was able to find out why the hell my PC was
broadcasting a Wi-Fi
hotspot (password protected or not)
to my entire neighborhood before I suffered the
consequences. I mean who knows how long I've been
walking around with this projection feature turned on.
Normally, I am good about disabling open vulnerabilities
like this
and not being a total airhead with Windows 10, but
alas the Creators Update got me again. My first thought
was that I had enabled personal hotspot within Windows
Action Center through some unexplainable reason, as this
PC doesn't even have cellular connectivity
capabilities, let
alone a slot to insert a SIM card. Only reason I found out
my laptop was broadcasting an SSID of "DIRECT-
SpTOSHIBASATELLITmsPU" was because I was trying to
connect another iOS device to my main iPhone using a
personal hotspot connection.
I got a little freaked out,
because I thought some hacker was spoofing my laptop, or
creating some evil twin of my machine. So, paranoia ensued
a little bit, and I may have disabled more than I needed to,
but I feel a little more rest assured now that I'm
not walking
around with a (private or not) Wi-Fi direct device in my bag.
I changed my hostname (just in case some script kiddie
wants to mess with my PC), and switched off the radio
button that said my PC connects to a corporate
domain/network. This is a
home PC, and not a work laptop,
so I really don't know why that was on to be honest. This is
a Windows 10 Education copy provided by my Community
College insitution, so that might have something to do with
it. A lot of settings are grayed out, especially in
the
Personalization area of Settings which sucks because as a
power user I would like full control of my PC. Not my
college making decisions for me. I have tried Group Policy
configuration, which even manually adjusting certain GP
categories on a PC without
any prior settings touched
provides no resolution. I guess using the Education version
of Windows 10 does give the institution/corp some control
over your device. But, it's not like I'm being managed
through a company portal like MDM in Microsoft Intune or
something. So, I'm just kind of confused why I have all the
feature or Enterprise Windows 10, but am limited to certain
features in the Settings panel like I'm on some un-activated
copy, or an IT admin is locking down settings in Group
Policy. OK WILD TANGENT AND TOTALLY OFF TOPIC RANT
 Policy. OK WILD TANGENT
AND TOTALLY OFF TOPIC RANT
IS OVER. So getting back to the projection exploit. It kind of
reminds me of my Apple TV's way of handling AirPlay
capable devices on the network (which I set to on my Wi-Fi
network only, and require a passcode the first time). At
least the Apple TV doesn't broadcast itself to be projected
to unless you are authenticated through a protected WPA-2
network, and or, supplied the OTP code on the screen.
Anyways, I digress, this rant has gone on for far too long.
Sometimes Windows 10 just
baffles me with all of its
vulnerabilities and exploits. 

Tuesday, February 19, 2019 10:45 PM

Dylan Woods Freelance Consulting 10 Points

That is the wrong answer.

WiFi-DIRECT SID broadcasts are an artifact of allowing

1 the PC to be projected to.
Sign in
to vote There IS a GUI for turning this on and off:

Settings -> Projecting to this PC -> set to "Always OFF"

I signed up here to thank you, this solved it for me. I

did try Kate Li's CMD commands on my PC by running
the CMD as Administrator but that didn't turn off the
DIRECT network. This did. 

Now the questions that remain are:

1) how come it became turned on in the first place (I

haven't installed anything but Microsoft updates
recently)

2) how do we get assured that it won't happen again?

The way it went with me was a serious security flaw

which, had it been on almost any other PC than my
sofa-laptop, would have required filing a GDPR
incident report within 72h. had this happened next
June :-(

 
 It's probably best just to get used to the fact that Windows
10 from the get-go was designed to be a data harvester
and spyware OS, and that's just putting it lightly. As we all
know I'm sure, "FREE" comes at a cost, especially to our
own privacy. It would be wise to go through some of the
privacy features in Windows 10 and see what gets enabled
by default, and what can be turned back on after Windows
Update. Barnecules Nerdgasm and ThioJoe have some
great videos on features and settings
to disable. They may
be worth taking a look when you have the time, even if they
are a bit dated to today's OS build number . This should put
you at ease just a little, although there is no stopping or
getting around a lot of the stuff that runs behind the
scenes
without the users knowledge. I will link the videos down
below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9kFXnomRWQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfzWxxDV13w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1kGMCfb2xw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPFbAqICUJo

Tuesday, February 19, 2019 10:46 PM

Dylan Woods Freelance Consulting 10 Points

Good stuff woodywoodywoody this worked!

Monday, March 4, 2019 2:05 AM

0 Ckmir 0 Points
Sign in
to vote
 This is the best and only right answer i have found so far.
Thank you.

Thursday, March 21, 2019 8:38 AM

0
Sign in
to vote Best answer 0 Points

Right answer and worked for me. The service that runs is
Projecting PC. This is to share the screen of two different PC
wirelessly. The connection happens from one PC to Other
through Direct Wifi between both.

0
Sign in So setting it to 'Always Off' will disable it from being
to vote
discoverable hence saving some battery in the background.

After turning it off, wait for a minute or so, and then refresh
the wifi on your phone, it will be gone.

Monday, April 8, 2019 7:11 AM

PraveenNaik 0 Points

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