How to stop "Do you want your machine to be discoverable"?

Thenin · 08 Jun 2020

I'm running 64-bit Windows 10 Pro v 1909 (OS Build 18363.693) on a home-built desktop.

Something changed recently -- probably a Windows update -- that's annoying the hell out of me. Here's the situation: I much prefer to work on my machine offline just as much as possible. I used to simply block my firewall, but I've seen suspicious network activity even then, so in the last couple of years I've written and very frequently used two AutoIt scripts to block/unblock the firewall as well as enable/disable the Ethernet adapter (there's no wireless adapter on this box).

This has worked perfectly until the last couple of weeks. Now, every time I enable Ethernet, I get a very annoying popup window asking me if I want to make my machine discoverable on the network. Of course I do! And I've always, always enabled private network discovery and always disabled public discovery. It's never asked this question before, so why is it asking me now? And is it asking about private or public discoverability, or both? Finally, how can I stop Windows from endlessly asking this stupid question and just go with the settings I have?

Thanks!

hsehestedt · 08 Jun 2020

Thenin,

I believe that it should only ask that question if it is seeing a "new" network for which you have not previously answered whether you want your machine to be discoverable.

I would be curious to know what commands you are using to to disable and enable the Ethernet adapter.

Are you using the "netsh interface set interface "Adapter_Name" enable" command?

Thenin · 08 Jun 2020

Thanks, hsehestedt, for your reply!

hsehestedt said:

Thenin,

I believe that it should only ask that question if it is seeing a "new" network for which you have not previously answered whether you want your machine to be discoverable.

I would be curious to know what commands you are using to to disable and enable the Ethernet adapter.

Are you using the "netsh interface set interface "Adapter_Name" enable" command?

It's definitely not seeing a "new" network, but only the same pre-existing one that switched from disabled to enabled. I'm not using netsh or any command lines at all. I'm using two AutoIt functions: _DisableNetAdapter(<Ethernet Adapter>) and _EnableNetAdapter(<Ethernet Adapter>). These functions invoke deeper functions which obtains the appropriate WMIservice object for my Ethernet adapter, queries it for the current configuration, and if its not in the desired state already, it invokes the Disable() or Enable() functors as appropriate.

Please note that this all worked perfectly until a couple of weeks ago, so its hard to see how the AutoIt scripts could be the problem.

Thanks for your reply, though!

- - - Updated - - -

I just discovered what is probably either the cause or part of the cause of what I'm seeing. After answering the question about making my machine discoverable (I can't recall if I said Yes or No the last time), I looked at the Network and Sharing settings and found that the Private network discovery setting was set to Off and Public discovery was set to On. But every time I try to reverse these, and check again, it always get changed back to the previous settings. I tried rebooting but that didn't change anything.

Also, Windows has stopped showing the popup I described in my OP, which is good but very curious.

What the heck is this all about, and how do I permanently enable Private discovery and disable Public discovery? Perhaps I can force a change in the Registry? But I don't know the key.

This obviously has something to do with my OP.

ETA: My network is using a Workgroup connection rather than the home thing (I can't recall it's name). Also, I've setup my router to always assign fixed IP addresses to each MAC address.

hsehestedt · 08 Jun 2020

Thenin, just humor me for a second

Try enable the adapter once more. If asked about making it discoverable, answer the prompt.

Now disable it via netsh rather than using autoIt. Then, re-enable using netsh. Does that also result in a prompt?

Thenin · 08 Jun 2020

Okay, I've done that and I did not get the popup, so thanks! But am also not seeing it using the AutoIt scripts, so there is definitely progress.

But the second issue, the one underneath the "Updated" section, where every time I try to enable Private Discovery and disable Public Discovery, it immediately reverts back, even after rebooting.

Also, I ran "dism.exe /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth", and then "SFC /SCANNOW". The dism command reported success without errors, and the SFC reported it found corruption (only in the foreign language crap), and it also reported it fixed them all. The SFCFix utility confirmed there were no problems left to fix.

If I knew where the Private/Public discovery keys were in the registry, I could try too brute force them. Do you happen to know where I could learn this?

hsehestedt · 09 Jun 2020

I'm not sure where that registry key is. I'll try to research this in the morning and will let you know if I turn up anything helpful.

RickC · 09 Jun 2020

The network category (i.e. public/private/domain) is stored in each network profile in the registry. The profiles use GUIDs under:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\NetworkList\Profiles

Check each GUID in the left-hand navigation pane until you see the ProfileName entry in the right-hand pane with a REG_SZ value that matches the name of your network as shown in the Network and Sharing Centre.

How to stop "Do you want your machine to be discoverable"?-network_profile_category.png

Once you've identified the correct GUID, check the DWORD value for the Category entry. A private network has a value of 1 (public = 0; domain = 2).

If there is any doubt, remove the ethernet cable, delete the GUID(s) - new ones will be recreated for each network the device connects to - then restart and reconnect the ethernet cable. A new network connection profile will be created (free from any possible registry corruption) and it will be clear which new GUID to keep an eye on.

(This is the second network profile issue posted in the last 24 hours... hmm.)

Hope this helps...