Windows 10 includes a very cool feature that automatically generates a detailed report of all your wireless network connection history. The report includes details about the networks you’ve connected to, session duration, errors, network adapters, and even shows the output of a few command prompt commands.
This report is ideal for anyone having a problem connecting to the Internet, as it allows you to diagnose problems associated with each Wi-Fi session.
How to Generate a WLAN Report and Wi-Fi History
We’ll use the Windows Command Prompt in our example here, but you can also use the same command in Windows PowerShell. Just make sure to select “Run as administrator” when opening PowerShell.
You will need to run the command prompt as an administrator to run this command, press Start, then type “cmd” in the search box. Right-click on the “Command Prompt” result, then select “Run as administrator.”
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At the prompt, type the following command and press Enter:
netsh wlan show wlanreport
Windows generates the report and stores it in the following location:
C:/ProgramData/Microsoft/Windows/WlanReport/wlan-report-latest.html by default.
You can either navigate to the folder and double-click the .html file, or copy the file path and type it into your web browser’s address bar.
How to read the report
The report includes several sections containing detailed data about networks, general system, user, and adapter information.
WLAN report
The first section shows a graph with a WLAN report which, when hovering over a specific session, displays detailed information about each session. A red circle with an “X” represents an error. This is an interactive graph and you can hover over an event to get a summary or click on any event to jump to it in the list of sessions further down in the report.
Report Information
This section indicates the date the report was generated and the number of days covered by the report.
General System Information
This section contains details about your computer: computer name, manufacturer, system product name, BIOS date and version, etc.
user information
This section includes general information about the user who generated the report, such as the user’s username, domain, and DNS domain.
Network adapters
This section contains a detailed list of all network adapters on your PC, including hidden ones. It gives device name, Plug and Play ID, Global Unique Identifier, current driver, driver date, and device node flags.
Script output
You will also see the output of several command prompt commands included in the report. These provide even more details regarding your network adapters and WLAN information.
The ipconfig /all command displays detailed information about the adapter states on your computer, including the adapter’s MAC address, IP address, DNS server, and more.
The NetSh WLAN Show All command shows you details about your Wi-Fi adapter, including its capabilities, all Wi-Fi profiles on your PC, and a full list of all networks found when you ran the report.
The CertUtil -store -silent My & certutil -store -silent -user My command displays a list of all current certificates stored on your PC.
Profile output
This section includes a detailed list of all Wi-Fi profiles stored on your PC. Each time you connect to another wireless device, the information used to connect to it is stored on your computer. Everything except encrypted keys and passwords is displayed here.
Summary
The summary section is divided into three parts and presents session successes, failures and warnings; the reasons for the disconnection; and the duration of each session.
Wireless Sessions
In this section, you will find a very detailed list of all the events that occurred for each Wi-Fi session. Each session is separated into its own section; clicking the plus to expand an event reveals even more details about it. Some of the details include interface name, connection mode, connection profile, network name, and disconnection reason.
Whenever your computer is having trouble connecting to a wireless network, you can run this command and get a detailed report of the last three days of activity to help diagnose any connectivity issues you may be experiencing.
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