James, I am so sorry no one gave you a full and complete answer (until now). This is not an easy answer, but it accomplishes what you were trying to do without resorting to links to the wrong information or invalid methods.
This is how to merge network locations in Windows 8 and later. First off, I familiarized myself with this tree in the Registry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\NetworkList\Nla
Go there in
regedit. The first part of this is to backup that key. Click FILE-> Export and save your NLA.reg someplace convenient. You can always Merge this registry file later if you mess things up.
Second, Take a look at these keys:
Profiles\{Long-String-in-Hexadecimal-1}
Profiles\{Long-String-in-Hexadecimal-2}
...etc.
Signatures\Unmanaged\01010300F00F0080000000F000MORE_HEXADECIMAL_NUMBERS_1
Signatures\Unmanaged\01010300F00F0080000000F000MORE_HEXADECIMAL_NUMBERS_2
...etc.
Third, browse all the Unmanaged keys and try to find the network you are trying to merge. More than likely, you will start to see a pattern emerge. Pay close attention to the MAC address of your Default Gateway,
found in the Key named DefaultGatewayMac.
Fourth, you will optionally want to discover which MAC addresses are on this network. Since I maintain a DHCP server, I completely understand what this means, and actually had a list of old and new MACs for different network cards on my home network. If you
have no such list, or you are getting lost, then you will need to Google these things and browse your network for these MAC addresses. Here's a few pointers to get you started if you are somewhat familiar with this:
Run these in a CMD window:
arp -a [You will see a lot of other MACs called "Physical Address"es]
ipconfig /all [You will find your own MAC.]
Compare these to known hosts and routers, wireless access points, switches, WAN routers, cable boxen, and other machines alive on your network.
Fifth, armed with this knowledge, go and try to start the merging of your network that Windows has decided is a plethora of disparate networks. As you can see,
Windows basically looks for the default gateway's MAC address as a unique identifier on the network. It is also checking for domains,
domain suffixes (Key name
DNSSuffix), and something called "Source." I think the "Source" key is configured to indicate which network device is being used... I see a lot of
8 in hexadecimal for 802.11g, a 200 for a WAN card, and a
408 in hex for a 802.11n card at 5 GHz.
Here's what you should do:
Look at each Unmanaged key and find your most recent or most favorite one. Now look at its ProfileGuid and use that to go back up to the Profiles Key. So if your ProfileGuid is {9014C005-F052-4474-A2A7-D1BA26187B04} then you look for {9014C005-F052-4474-A2A7-D1BA26187B04}
under Profiles.
Under the {9014C005-F052-4474-A2A7-D1BA26187B04} key (or whichever one you prefer), you will see DateCreated and last connected, and the important
ProfileName. Pretend for a moment that your ProfileName is
MyHomeNet. Look at the other ones above and below {9014C005-F052-4474-A2A7-D1BA26187B04} until you see the Profile that seems correct already. Do not modify any Profiles. You may now see stupid things like
MyHomeNet 2, MyHomeNet 3, Network 4, and other NEAR duplicates in the Windows ridiculous way!!
So go back to the Unmanaged keys and modify them to POINT to your favorite Profile, leaving the bad profiles alone and orphaned. In other words, some of the bad profiles names will never appear any more when we are done.
*Click your favorite Unmanaged key that is pointing to the good profile and select ProfileGuid. Double Click it, and the string will be highlighted.
*Hit CTRL-C to copy this.
*Click one of your Unmanaged keys that you want to merge, and select its ProfileGuid. Double Click it, and hit CTRL-V to paste the good profile.
So if {9014C005-F052-4474-A2A7-D1BA26187B04} was your favorite profile and it is applicable to your network, then you will paste it into ProfileGuid in a number of places. You might do this 2, 7, or 27 times if you still have 27 og them!
You have now merged a lot of unique networks into one profile. Note that this should only be done when your network is the same but the "default gateway" has a different MAC. You should not be merging your home network location with your school network
or your hotspot network.
Your changes can take effect pretty quickly. You can disable and then enable your wireless. You can unplug and replug in your wired network, too. As soon as a reconnect is done, it should have the correct name.
At this point, you can go back to the registry and edit the Profile name if needed.
WINDOWS 8: How do I Merge, rename, delete network locations?
