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I have been using my home ADSL and when I had problems with it, switched to my iPhone for network access. This mostly works as planned, but I have noticed that Windows 7 creates a new network name even though the hardware has not changed; I am now connected to Home Network 2 and just before I was connected to My iPhone 3.

The network SSIDs are "Home Network" and "My iPhone" and the suffix gets incremented every so often in my Internet and Sharing Center when I have been disconnected and reconnect. Note that it is not the SSID that changes, but the network name in the Internet and Sharing Center.

Also it asks me every time whether this is a home, office, or public network. What can I do to make it reconnect to an existing network rather than create a new duplicate with a number suffix?

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Why dont you change your SSID to something more meaningful besides Home Network? When you look in Network and sharing -> Manage wireless Networks what does it say in there? – onxx Feb 7 at 16:57
Actually the SSID is something different, but a cryptic name which only makes sense to myself is hardly going to make this question easier to understand or answer. – tripleee Feb 7 at 17:28
so the SSIO keeps incrementing when ever you connect to your home AP? – onxx Feb 7 at 17:42
I don't know if it's literally every time, but an awful lot during the last couple of days, and I think never before that. But I also did not switch back and forth before my ADSL operator started having problems yesterday. – tripleee Feb 7 at 18:00
@triplee Have you tried deleting and re-creating the profiles on your computer, and/or doing a netsh reset? 'netsh winsock reset' technet.microsoft.com – onxx Feb 7 at 18:06
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Although I have not found any evidence to support, I have the suspicion that the problem is linked to your Computer receiving a new IP address from your router once you reconnect. Here's why:

I remember having the same problem a while ago when using my mobile phone as an access point. Windows would always show me the old network name incremented by one. Eventually, this stopped once I changed my phone.

Every time you reconnect to either of your access points, you get a new IP address from the router. So Windows thinks there was a change in the network and asks you anew for permissions (public, private, work).

Note that some routers change your devices' local IP addresses (e.g. my former Zyxel 660HN modem), while some don't (my Fonera 2.0n). The only way to alter this behavior in the former category is to assign a static local IP address like 192.168.0.25 to the MAC address of your computer. You have to do this in your router interface.

As for the iPhone, I don't think it is possible to make these changes. You will just have to live with it or hope that Microsoft applies an update that fixes this behavior.

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Of course I get a new IP address, that's how DHCP works. I don't think this can be the explanation. – tripleee 2 days ago
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