Why can't Win7 remember my tether? New Connection Setup every time

In Win7 when you connect to a new network you're prompted to set it as a Home, Work, or Public connection. Presumably this influences default security settings.

That's all well and good, except for the part that everytime I USB tether my smartphone Win7 comes up with a new dialogue. I think I'm up to generic connection 25 or something? It's getting ridiculous.

Is there anyway to get Win7 to remember the phone tether as ONE connection only?

Open Network and Sharing center, click on the icon of the active tethered network under "View your active networks", click on merge or delete network locations to delete networks not in use.

You can try this if you don't mind the network icon not showing that you're connected.

1. Open Registry Editor (regedit.exe).
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}.
3. There are subkeys numbered 0001 to 0019. Look in each subkey in descending order (start from 0019) for the one with DriverDesc value having your smartphone's RNDIS driver name (same name shown in your Network Connections view as the "Connect using" value).
4. Once located, in the right side, right-click an empty area and select New > DWORD (32-bit) Value.
5. Enter the name as *NdisDeviceType (remember to include the asterisk sign * in front).
6. Edit the newly created DWORD value and enter the value data as 1 (Base choice doesn't matter). Click OK.
7. Once done, in your Network Connections view, disable the network device, and enable it after a few seconds.

You will no longer get a prompt asking for network location whenever you connect your smartphone, but you will still get the prompt when connecting other devices.

Important Note: When you are only connected to your smartphone, your computer's network icon will continue to show that you are not connected to any network. However, the internet will still work fine.

Source: Windows 7 starts a new network every...: Apple Support Communities

1. Open Network & Sharing Center

2. Change adapter settings

3. Right click (on your tethered "Remote NDIS based Internet Sharing Device", in my case its "LAN-Huawei-USB")

4. Status

5. Details

6. Copy the IPv4 Address, Subnet Mask, Default Gateway & DNS Servers (in my case it's- ipv4: 192.168.42.11, subnet: 255.255.255.0, gateway: 192.168.42.129, dns servers: 208.67.222.222 & 8.8.8.8)

7. again Right click (on your tethered "Remote NDIS based Internet Sharing Device", in my case its "LAN-Huawei-USB")

8. Properties

9. Highlight "Internet protocol version 4 (TCP/IPv4)

10. Properties

11. Use the following IP address:

12. enter what you copied earlier from STATUS here

13. OK

14. close all windows

Now your computer will stop creating Networks, mine has stopped at "Network 14"