Why do I have 55 local area connections in ipconfig?

Question

Windows Vista Home Premium. I should mention that I am having no problem whatever getting an internet connection.

When I type "ipconfig" in the console, I get (55!) messages of 3 lines each, listing a ton of disconnected network connections. My PC only has one network card. Each message looks like this:

Tunnel adapter Local Area Connection* 55:

   Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :

These don't cause a major problem; they make it a pain, though, to fish upward and find my IP address. How can I get rid of them?

Edit:

Actually, a few connection numbers are randomly missing from the sequence; so, it's really more like 30 or 40 connection messages, rather than all 55. Not sure why that is, either.

Answer 1

I looked at your question and suddenly noticed something uncommon, that was the * with the name. Googled a little and found this answer on MSFT forum.

Windows makes several "simulated" network adapters for various purposes. For example, if you're on an IPv4-only network, but you want to connect to an IPv6 computer on the internet, Windows can create a simulated network adapter that tunnels the IPv6 traffic through your IPv4 network.

There are actually quite a few of these simulated network adapters. Since they usually quietly take care of themselves, and they don't correspond to any actual network hardware that you (the end-user) can see or touch, Windows will hide them by default, to avoid clutter.

Now suppose Windows just started numbering all the adapters with the same naming scheme ("Ethernet 1", "Ethernet 2", "Ethernet 3", . . ., etc.). Then by the time you actually install your actual NIC, it would probably get a name like "Ethernet 7". But since Windows hides the first 6 network interfaces, you'd see a listing that only includes one NIC: "Ethernet 7". And you'd probably say "stupid Windows doesn't know how to count."

So instead, we have two numbering schemes. Real, physical NICs get numbered "Ethernet ###" (or "Wi-Fi ###", etc.) while all the hidden network adapters get "Local Area Connection* ###". That way, the NICs that you see will be numbered starting from 1, even though there are a big pile of hidden network interfaces that were installed first.

What does the asterisk mean? The asterisk used to be the signal that the NIC was a hidden NIC. Older versions of Windows named all visible NICs "Local Area Connection ###", and hidden ones were distinguished by adding an extra asterisk. These days, we try to avoid using nerdy jargon like "Local Area Connection" when talking to you, so we changed the naming pattern to "Ethernet". But since hidden NICs don't matter, we kept their old naming pattern with the asterisk.

If you're curious, you can see all the network interfaces on your system with this PowerShell command:

Get-NetAdapter -IncludeHidden

(source)

This not only explains the * but also explains your 55 connections. The * connections are simulated.

Answer 2

These are probably IPv6 Tunnel Adapters. While I haven't seen it myself, I've heard of others who seem to get a new one for every new network they connect to. If you don't need IPv6, you can disable it, and remove the redundant tunnel adapters. There's a post here about it:

http://ryanvictory.com/posts/automating-6to4-adapter-removal-in-windows/

Answer 3

At a command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER:

set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1

Then go to Control Panel > System > Device Manager > View > Show Hidden Devices > Network adapter>

Remove all ISATAP Devices and Microsoft 6TO4 Adapters.

Turn off IPV6 on your adapter: