Computer networks are becoming more and more widespread and although we usually associate that term with office or corporate networks, we cannot forget that in any home that has an Internet connection we have a network normally composed of one or more mobiles, one or more PCs and one or more televisions with Smart TV. From there, it can be increased by adding different devices connected to the network and thus create a more or less complex system.
Although most of the devices that we connect to our network only allow it via WiFi (smartphones, tablets, etc.), computers allow us to connect via WiFi or cable.
If you have Windows 10 as your operating system, you will see that when you connect the Ethernet cable, the operating system creates a local network with our computer. If you have updated the Microsoft operating system to the latest version, you will see that you can access the Ethernet settings from the Configuration page.
We can also access these settings through Network Connections where our network will appear with the name of the adapter and the local network. One of the handicaps that Windows has when creating network connections is that it names them Ethernet 1, Ethernet 2, etc; this can lead to confusion, since they are not very identifying names.
If we want to change the name of our local network to be able to identify the different networks to which we are connecting, we will have no choice but to enter the Windows registry, so let’s see how we can do it ourselves.
Windows registry settings
The Windows registry is a database that stores the configuration settings and options of our operating system. This database contains the configuration of all components of the operating system and all applications that are running on the platform. The database points directly to the system kernel, device drivers, services, user interface and third-party applications, so we must be careful when making any changes and configure or modify only the fields of which we are totally sure, since any erroneous modification in the system registry can cause a malfunction of the operating system.
In order to change the name of the local network, we must open the “Execute” window . We can open this window directly from the Windows search engine or by pressing the “Windows” key + R. Once we have the run window open we must write regedit and navigate to the path:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsNTCurrentVersion
NetworkListProfiles .
Once we are inside the «profiles» folder, we will see that there are many folders with names in hexadecimal format and that they correspond to all the connections we have on the computer. As we cannot know at a glance which name corresponds to each connection, we must go one by one checking its string value with that of ProfileName that is inside Profiles.
When we have identified the local network to which we want to change the name, we must modify the value that it has predefined and change it to the one that is best for us to identify the network quickly. Once we have made the change, it will be made immediately , so it is not necessary to save the changes reboot the system or reboot the system.
To check this, we can access «Network connections» or the shared resource center and there we can check how the operating system recognizes our local network with the name that we have modified in regedit.
Improve data transfer speed
One of the problems that we can find in our network, in addition to having an unintuitive name, is the slowness of file transfer. Most of the time it is difficult to know if this slowness is due to our network or the Internet connection in our house. An easy way to tell if the problem is related to your Internet connection is to run a speed test.
The optimal way to do this test would be by connecting your PC directly to the cable router and running the speed test. If the test result indicates that the speed is good, but the file transfer via WiFi (or through intermediate elements between the router and our PC such as a switch) is notably slow, it will mean that unfortunately we have an internal problem of our network.
Bandwidth limit in Windows 10
A problem that we may have and not realize is that the bandwidth is limited in Windows 10. Due to this limitation it is possible that we notice the slowness when transferring files, watching movies or browsing the Internet. In order to check this option, we must open the “Run” window and write gpedit.msc in it . Next we press the Enter key.
The local group policy editor will open. In the right bar we have a tree with several folders and subfolders. Here we will look for “Computer configuration” and we will enter the “administrative templates” folder. Next, we select “Network” and look for the section “QoS packet scheduler”. Once we have selected it on the right side of the screen, we double click on Limit reservable bandwidth.
Surely its status will be “Not configured” which is the default setting that Windows 10 brings. This means that it should not have any type of limitation or restriction on the computer’s connection speed. Although in this case we recommend changing that value in order to get the most out of our available bandwidth. We must click on “Limit reservable bandwidth” and another screen will open in which we can choose the option of “Not configured”, “Enabled” or “Disabled”.
We select the option “Enabled” and in the lower part where it indicates «Bandwidth limit (%)» we see that it is configured with the value 80. We must change this value to 0. Next, we accept to save the configuration and this In this way we eliminate the bandwidth limit that Windows 10 has by default.