PowerShell Enable-NetAdapter

How to Enable a Network Adapter with PowerShell 3.0

With PowerShell 3.0 it’s straightforward to enable a NIC (Network Interface Card), just use a built-in CIM cmdlet called Enable-NetAdapter.

Tutorial to Enable (or Disable) a NIC

• Scenarios for Enabling a Network Adapter
• How to Enable a Named Network Card
• How to Disable Your Network Card
• PowerShell 3 Get-NetAdapter

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Scenarios for Enabling a Network Adapter

Many scenarios for controlling a network adapter focus on Wi-Fi.  However, there maybe other situations where a computers has multiple NICs and you want to choose which one is active.

When grappling with NIC settings, Windows PowerShell v 3.0 offers an easier alternativeto ‘Netsh’ commands such as:
Netsh interface set interface <NIC Name> Enabled

The only problem with PowerShell’s Enable-NetAdapter is that you need to know the Name of your NIC.  This is where the cmdlet Get-NetAdapter is a useful precursor.

Research the Names of Your NICs

Note 1:  You can find more properties by appending | Get-Member.

How to Enable a Named Network Card

Preliminary step: before you launch PowerShell, right-click and ‘Run as Administrator’.

Note 2:  You may need to change the name ‘Wi-Fi’ for the name of your network card, as revealed by research with Get-NetAdapter.

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SolarWinds’ Network Performance Monitor will help you discover what’s happening on your network.  This utility will also guide you through troubleshooting; the dashboard will indicate whether the root cause is a broken link, faulty equipment or resource overload.

What I like best is the way NPM suggests solutions to network problems.  Its also has the ability to monitor the health of individual VMware virtual machines.  If you are interested in troubleshooting, and creating network maps, then I recommend that you try NPM now.

Download a free trial of Solarwinds’ Network Performance Monitor

How to Disabled Your Network Card

For testing purposes you may wish to ‘Disable’ the network card, and thus reverse the effect of Enable-NetAdapter.

Note 3:  Remember this: before you launch PowerShell 3.0 ISE, right-click and Run as Administrator.

More Members of Microsoft’s NetAdapter Family

Once you have found a useful PowerShell cmdlet it’s always worth researching it’s sister commands; who knows, you may find an even better cmdlet.

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Getting Started With PowerShell v 3.0

• Launch PowerShell (Preferably the ISE version)
• Copy the lines of code in the above examples (into memory).
• Right-click in the top pane.
• Paste.

More PowerShell v 3.0 Networking Cmdlets

One way to discover more about the new version 3 cmdlets is once the ISE has launched, look at the ‘Modules’ in the Commands pane. 

See more examples of PowerShell v 3.0 NetAdapter cmdlets »

Summary of PowerShell Enable-NetAdapter Cmdlet

PowerShell 3.0 introduces new cmdlets to manipulate NICs.  This page shows you how easy it is to enable a Wi-Fi network card with Enable-NetAdapter.

See more Microsoft PowerShell v 3.0 examples

• PowerShell 3.0  • What’s New in PowerShell 3.0  • PowerShell v 3.0 ISE  • PowerShell Home

• Get-NetAdapter  • Disable-NetAdapter  • Enable-NetAdapter  • Get-NetIPConfiguration

• PowerShell Network Cmdlets  • PowerShell 3.0 Logon Script  • PowerShell Show-Command