Just a quick one for you folks today. Some time ago, I was at a friend’s place. We were about to do a bit of gaming, so I pulled out my laptop, meaning to connect to her wireless. Unfortunately, she couldn’t actually remember her wireless key – nor could her family. Now, ordinarily, this problem could be solved simply by connecting to the router and figuring out the key from there. Unfortunately…they didn’t know the password for the router, either. They knew they had it written down somewhere, though, small comfort though that was. What followed was an hours-long search for the elusive notepad which contained the access key.

The irony here is that we could have worked out the password in a matter of minutes, if not seconds, if we’d known what we were doing at the time. Of course, we could have downloaded an application such as WirelessKeyView…but there’s actually a much simpler solution: so long as you’ve got a system connected to your network which is running Windows 7.

As far as I know, this doesn’t work on earlier versions of Windows.

Anyway, the process you need to run through is quite simple. Go to the Network and Sharing Center in the Windows Control Panel. Next up, click on “Manage Wireless Networks.” Once you’re there, scroll to the network whose key you wish to know. You can also simply click on the “show hidden icons” button on your status bar and right click on the WiFi icon to access the “Properties” menu. You should see two tabs: Connection and Security. Click on the second, then click on “Show Characters” underneath the input box for the password.

That’s all you need to do – your network password will be there, clear as day. Maybe write it down somewhere it won’t get lost, this time.

Image Credits: [Salon]

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