How to delete unsecured wifi connection from my laptop..?

greyskittles

I got a new laptop this morning and I've been messing around with it. At the bottom of my screen there was an icon which looked like a graph. I clicked it, and it showed me a load of unsecured wifi connections (4 of which are really strong). I clicked one and the internet came on! Now the icon has disappeared.

The thing is, I want to get this connection off my laptop now but I can't seem to remove the connection as it won't let me delete it. So for now I've disabled it.

Can anyone tell me how to stop my laptop connection to it, and how to delete the connection altogether? I'm using XP if that helps. I really wasn't trying to leech off them, I have my own internet. Also can they find out that it was me who connected? Now I can't even find the thing where it scans for connections. Is there any way I can reset the laptop altogether?!

espresso

greyskittles wrote: »

I got a new laptop this morning and I've been messing around with it. At the bottom of my screen there was an icon which looked like a graph. I clicked it, and it showed me a load of unsecured wifi connections (4 of which are really strong). I clicked one and the internet came on! Now the icon has disappeared.

The thing is, I want to get this connection off my laptop now but I can't seem to remove the connection as it won't let me delete it. So for now I've disabled it.

Can anyone tell me how to stop my laptop connection to it, and how to delete the connection altogether? I'm using XP if that helps. I really wasn't trying to leech off them, I have my own internet. Also can they find out that it was me who connected? Now I can't even find the thing where it scans for connections. Is there any way I can reset the laptop altogether?!

Do you have your own wireless router? If so set up your laptop so that it will only connect to your own secure connection. If you don't have a wireless router, switch off the wireless on your laptop.

If they were to look in their router log, they would see the MAC address of your laptop!

djheath

Firstly, calm down!! They wont know it is "you" as in your name, only the mac address (unique address of the network hardware) of your laptop would show on their network. If they haven't secured their network, then I doubt they even know about this.

The best thing to do is go to the start menu click on network connections, then wireless network connections. Then click on the advanced settinsg option on the left. You will then be shown a screen with a tab at the top saying "wireless networks". Click on it. If you may need to select the box "use windows to configure my wirelss network" on that page and then in the preferred networks section you should see the name of the unsecured network you connected to. Select it and click remove button.
Click ok.

You will now not connect to that network automatically.

CHR15

Free Internet, cool!

Use that for MP3 and movies, use your own for legit stuff.

Seriously, I wouldn't worry about it. It's more than likely that anyone with an unsecured network would have no idea if someone else was connected to it.