Forcing Wi-Fi on

Summary: In the K12 Education world, laptops are becoming more and more prevelant, and so is Wi-Fi. Unfortunately, limited users are allowed to forget Wi-Fi networks and turn on Airplane Mode and disable Wi-Fi altogether, ruining the experience for the next user.

Technical Details and Assumptions

We are assuming there is no MDM solution in place (i.e. Jamf, Intune, etc)
We assume you’re running on-prem Active Directory (for the Group Policy portions)
We assume you are not using certificate-based authentication (and therefore, not simply deploying Wi-Fi Profiles with GPO)
We assume the profile has been loaded somehow already

Requirements

You have a method of deploying the Wi-Fi key (i.e. with netsh wlan add profile filename=Private-Wi-Fi.xml user=all)
A method to do this offline (which is what I’m doing)
Tested on Windows 11 and 10

Method

Create (or edit) a Group Policy Object targetting the computers.
Edit the GPO above with the following:
1. Computer Configuration -> Policies -> Windows Settings -> Security Settings -> Wireless Network (802.11) Policies -> Create new policy
  - This policy is to filter out any networks that are not your network. Ensure you type in your private Wi-Fi name correctly - this will block all other networks from being visible or connectable until removed.
  - Click the Network Permissions tab.
  - Add -> Network Name - Private-WiFi, Network type - Infrastructure, Permission - Allow
  - Prevent connections to ad-hoc networks
  - Prevent connections to infrastructure networks
2. Computer Configuration -> Preferences -> Windows Settings -> Files (NOTE: Replace anything in ALL CAPS with the correct values - GUID is the GPO’s GUID and changes for each object you create)
  - Source File - \\DOMAIN\SysVol\DOMAIN\Policies\{GUID}\Machine\Scripts\Startup\Set-NetAdapterRadioPowerState.ps1
  - Destination File - C:\TECH-SUPPORT\Set-NetAdapterRadioPowerState.ps1
  - Supress errors on individual file actions
3. Computer Configuration -> Preferences -> Windows Settings -> Files (NOTE: Replace anything in ALL CAPS with the correct values - GUID is the GPO’s GUID and changes for each object you create)
  - Source File - \\DOMAIN\SysVol\DOMAIN\Policies\{GUID}\Machine\Scripts\Startup\Force Wireless On.cmd
  - Destination File - C:\TECH-SUPPORT\Force Wireless On.cmd
  - Supress errors on individual file actions
4. Computer Configuration -> Preferences -> Control Panel Settings -> Scheduled Tasks -> New Windows 7 and higher
  - Security Options -> Run as NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM, (o) Run whether user is logged on or not, Run with highest privileges
  - Triggers -> New… -> Being the task - At startup
  - Actions -> New… -> Start a program -> C:\TECH-SUPPORT\Force Wireless On.cmd

Scripts used

Set-NetAdapterRadioPowerState.ps1

# Set-NetAdapterRadioPowerState.ps1
# credit to ben-n on superuser; adapted from https://superuser.com/a/1293303

[CmdletBinding()] Param (
    [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)][ValidateSet('Off', 'On')][string]$WifiStatus
)

Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Runtime.WindowsRuntime
$asTaskGeneric = ([System.WindowsRuntimeSystemExtensions].GetMethods() | ? { $_.Name -eq 'AsTask' -and $_.GetParameters().Count -eq 1 -and $_.GetParameters()[0].ParameterType.Name -eq 'IAsyncOperation`1' })[0]
Function Await($WinRtTask, $ResultType) {
    $asTask = $asTaskGeneric.MakeGenericMethod($ResultType)
    $netTask = $asTask.Invoke($null, @($WinRtTask))
    $netTask.Wait(-1) | Out-Null
    $netTask.Result
}
[Windows.Devices.Radios.Radio,Windows.System.Devices,ContentType=WindowsRuntime] | Out-Null
[Windows.Devices.Radios.RadioAccessStatus,Windows.System.Devices,ContentType=WindowsRuntime] | Out-Null
Await ([Windows.Devices.Radios.Radio]::RequestAccessAsync()) ([Windows.Devices.Radios.RadioAccessStatus]) | Out-Null
$radios = Await ([Windows.Devices.Radios.Radio]::GetRadiosAsync()) ([System.Collections.Generic.IReadOnlyList[Windows.Devices.Radios.Radio]])
$wifi = $radios | ? { $_.Kind -eq 'WiFi' }
[Windows.Devices.Radios.RadioState,Windows.System.Devices,ContentType=WindowsRuntime] | Out-Null
Await ($wifi.SetStateAsync($WifiStatus)) ([Windows.Devices.Radios.RadioAccessStatus]) | Out-Null

Force Wireless On.cmd

@echo off
echo Checking for Wi-Fi interface...
netsh interface show interface | find "Wi-Fi"
IF %ERRORLEVEL% EQU 1 goto EndOfScript

echo Disabling Airplane mode...
reg add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\RadioManagement\SystemRadioState /ve /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
%__APPDIR__%wbem\wmic.exe path win32_networkadapter where NetConnectionID="Wi-Fi" call enable
netsh interface set interface "Wi-Fi" admin=enabled
echo Enabling software radio...
%WINDIR%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -Noninteractive -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Noprofile -File C:\TECH-SUPPORT\Set-NetAdapterRadioPowerState.ps1 -WifiStatus On

ping -n 3 127.0.0.1

REM *******
REM *** Wi-Fi should be on now
REM *******
netsh wlan show interfaces | find "Private-WiFi"
IF %ERRORLEVEL%==1 (
    netsh wlan connect name=Private-WiFi
)

:EndOfScript

Testing

As a standard user:

Go to the Quick Access area, and turn off the Wi-Fi. If you reboot, it should come back
Go to the Quick Access area, and turn on Airplane mode. If you reboot, it should come back
Go to the Quick Access area, and tell Wi-Fi to forget your network and disconnect. If you reboot, it should come back

Luke Barone