WinAdapterSwitcher

English | 简体中文

A fast network adapter switcher for Windows 10 / 11. It stays in the system tray and lets you switch between wired and wireless networks with one right-click, or enable/disable any adapter individually.

• Single-file portable app: WinAdapterSwitcher.exe, no installation required
• Target platform: Windows 10 / Windows 11
• Runtime: the built-in .NET Framework 4.8, no extra installation
• No network access, no telemetry, no ads

Why I built this

My ISP regularly causes DNS poisoning, blocks connections, or resets them outright. When that happens, I need to switch to a mobile hotspot quickly. But manually disabling and enabling adapters in Windows means going through Settings → Network & Internet → Advanced network settings → More network adapter options → right-click the adapter → Disable/Enable — far too many steps when I just want to get back online.

I defined the requirements and workflow, then used AI to help implement this tool. The result puts wired/wireless switching and adapter control into a tray menu, so common cases take one click.

Features

• Tray icon shows the current wired/wireless adapter state (enabled, disabled, or unknown)
• One-click modes:
  • Wired network only
  • Wireless network only
  • Enable all networks
  • Disable all networks (confirmation enabled by default)
• Enable or disable any adapter individually
• Pick the wired and wireless adapters in Settings; first run detects and saves them automatically
• UI available in Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, English, Japanese, Korean, German, French, and Spanish; follows the system language on first run and can be changed manually
• Start with Windows via a scheduled task that runs with highest privileges at sign-in
• Optional logging and optional auto-start task cleanup on exit
• Command-line arguments for shortcuts, scheduled tasks, and scripts
• Single-instance behavior: launching it again wakes the existing instance

Usage

1. Download and extract the release zip.
2. Run WinAdapterSwitcher.exe. The app declares requireAdministrator, so Windows shows a UAC prompt.
3. The app appears in the system tray. Right-click the tray icon to open the menu.

Enabling/disabling network adapters requires administrator privileges on Windows. The app requests elevation at startup through app.manifest.

Tray menu

Item	Description
Status line	Current state of the configured wired/wireless adapters
Wired network only	Enable wired, disable wireless
Wireless network only	Enable wireless, disable wired
Enable all networks	Enable all configured adapters
Disable all networks	Disable all configured adapters (confirmation dialog by default)
Enable/disable individual	List all adapters and toggle them individually
Refresh status	Re-read adapter state immediately
Restart as administrator	Shown only when the app is not elevated
Settings...	Choose adapters, auto-start, logging, and more
Exit	Quit the app

Double-click the tray icon to open Settings.

Settings

• Wired adapter / Wireless adapter: choose from the adapters on the system; the name and description are saved
• UI language: Automatic (follow the system) or one of the 8 supported languages
• Confirm before “Disable all networks”: enabled by default
• Enable log file: disabled by default; writes WinAdapterSwitcher.log next to the exe
• Remove the auto-start task when exiting: disabled by default
• Start with Windows: creates a per-user logon scheduled task that runs with highest privileges

Configuration

Configuration is stored in config.ini next to the exe. Moving the whole program folder keeps the configuration working. Example:

; WinAdapterSwitcher configuration
; This file is stored next to WinAdapterSwitcher.exe.

[Adapters]
Wired=Ethernet
WiredDescription=Realtek PCIe GbE Family Controller
Wireless=Wi-Fi
WirelessDescription=Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX201 160MHz

[Options]
Language=auto
ConfirmDisableAll=1
EnableLog=0
CleanAutoStartOnExit=0

Language accepts auto, zh-CN, zh-TW, en-US, ja-JP, ko-KR, de-DE, fr-FR, and es-ES. auto follows the system UI language and falls back to English when the language is not recognized.

If a configured adapter name no longer exists on the system, the tray status shows “Not found” and any action prompts you to reconfigure it. The app does not crash.

Command line

Command-line arguments are intended for shortcuts, scheduled tasks, and scripts. If the app is already running, a new instance forwards the command to the existing instance. Because this is a GUI app, standalone command results are shown in a dialog.

WinAdapterSwitcher.exe                 Start the tray app
WinAdapterSwitcher.exe --wired         Wired network only
WinAdapterSwitcher.exe --wifi          Wireless network only
WinAdapterSwitcher.exe --enable NAME   Enable the specified adapter
WinAdapterSwitcher.exe --disable NAME  Disable the specified adapter
WinAdapterSwitcher.exe --all-enable    Enable all networks
WinAdapterSwitcher.exe --all-disable   Disable all networks
WinAdapterSwitcher.exe --settings      Open Settings
WinAdapterSwitcher.exe --menu          Open the tray menu
WinAdapterSwitcher.exe --help          Show help

Building

Building does not require Visual Studio, the .NET SDK, Rust, Go, Node.js, or any package manager, and does not require an internet connection. Everything is built locally in one step, and this project does not use any CI/CD.

C# language constraint

The code must stay compatible with C# 5, because the csc.exe included with Windows only supports C# 5. Do not use:

• String interpolation $""
• Null-conditional operator ?.
• nameof
• Expression-bodied members (=> methods/properties)
• Tuples, using static, out var, pattern matching
• Any other C# 6+ syntax

The build script enforces this with /langversion:5. Source files are UTF-8, and the script passes /codepage:65001.

Windows 10 / 11

Requirement: the csc.exe from the built-in .NET Framework 4.x.

build.bat

The script looks for:

%WINDIR%\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\csc.exe
%WINDIR%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\csc.exe

If no compiler is found, it prints instructions for installing or enabling .NET Framework 4.8 instead of crashing.

Compiler options

build.bat uses these options:

/target:winexe
/out:WinAdapterSwitcher.exe
/win32manifest:app.manifest
/win32icon:app.ico
/reference:System.dll
/reference:System.Drawing.dll
/reference:System.Windows.Forms.dll
/reference:System.Core.dll
/reference:System.Management.dll
/reference:System.Xml.dll
/langversion:5

Adapter enumeration and status reads use System.Management to query MSFT_NetAdapter. Enable/disable operations use the built-in netsh interface set interface. If WMI is unavailable, the app falls back to parsing netsh interface show interface.

A successful Windows build produces a single WinAdapterSwitcher.exe in the repository root, normally around 150 KB, with no DLLs beside it.

Releases

Releases are published only on GitHub Releases and are built locally by the maintainer:

1. Run build.bat on Windows 10 / 11.

2. Perform a basic functional check on Windows 10 / 11.

3. Package WinAdapterSwitcher.exe as a zip.

4. Compute the SHA256 checksum:

   Get-FileHash .\WinAdapterSwitcher.exe -Algorithm SHA256

5. Create a GitHub Release, upload the zip, and include the SHA256, version, changelog, and supported Windows versions.

The repository contains no CI configuration files.

Auto-start and uninstall

Auto-start uses a Windows scheduled task named WinAdapterSwitcher:

• Trigger: when the current user signs in (about a 10-second delay)
• Privileges: highest, so Windows does not block a requireAdministrator app at sign-in
• Action: launch the full path to WinAdapterSwitcher.exe
• Does not write HKCU\...\Run, does not write HKLM, and does not register a service

Enabling or disabling auto-start requires administrator privileges (the app is already elevated). A legacy HKCU\...\Run\WinAdapterSwitcher entry from older versions is migrated to the scheduled task and deleted at startup.

If you delete the program folder without disabling auto-start, the task will fail at the next sign-in. Running the app again detects the missing path and removes the task. You can also delete WinAdapterSwitcher in Task Scheduler, or run the app and turn off auto-start in Settings.

Apart from the exe, config.ini, the optional WinAdapterSwitcher.log, and the scheduled task, the app creates no other files. Removing the program folder and the scheduled task completes uninstallation.

Project layout

Program.cs                 Entry point, single-instance handling, CLI entry
TrayApplicationContext.cs  Tray icon, context menu, status refresh
AdapterService.cs          Adapter enumeration, state reads, enable/disable (WMI + netsh fallback)
AdapterDetector.cs         Detects wired/wireless adapters on first run
SwitchEngine.cs            Mode switching and result aggregation
SettingsForm.cs            Settings window
Localization*.cs           UI strings for 8 languages
Config.cs                  config.ini read/write
AutoStart.cs               Windows scheduled task auto-start
Ipc.cs                     Single-instance command forwarding (named pipe)
CommandLine.cs             Command-line parsing
TrayIcons.cs               Runtime tray state icons
SecurityUtil.cs            Administrator checks and elevated restart
Logger.cs                  Optional logging
app.manifest               Administrator privileges, compatibility, DPI
app.ico                    Application icon
build.bat                  One-step build script
docs/README.zh-CN.md       Simplified Chinese README

License

MIT License