How to avoid the prompt “Do you want to find PCs, devices, and content”?
When a Windows Server (2012 or -R2) comes back from Stopped+Deallocated state in Azure, the “Do you want to find PCs, devices, and content on this network, and automatically connect to devices like printers and TVs?” question often appears:
The question appears again and again because Windows creates new network profiles, I guess due to Azure it feels to have new network adapters: after a few weeks of regular turn off/on cycles the (only one) network adapter listed is named "Ethernet 89" and the network profile is named "Network 19" - note the numbers.
Solutions I found so far to this problem suggest setting the public/private property of the network profile, which does not help as it is a new network profile every time. Others suggest turning off network discovery in the Domain profiles, but I don't have that:
The above settings don't prevent Windows from displaying the question for every new network profiles.
I must avoid this prompt because it steals the focus from a GUI program that is about to be started and automated on this server.
How to disable this question about new networks?
Here is the solution, try to create the registry key HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Network\NewNetworkWindowOff
Reference https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg252535(v=ws.10).aspx
I changed the following two services to Disabled:
- ltdsvc (Link-Layer Topology Discovery Mapper)
- NlaSvc (Network Location Awareness)
and the problem seems to be solved.
However, I'm not satisfied with this solution, there must be a less obtrusive way.