Hide exclamation mark *No internet connection* on network icon when on a local network

Question

I understand the purpose of this yellow exclamation mark which says No internet connection.
But I'm on a local network where I do not have a internet connection.

Can I hide the exclamation mark without hiding the whole network icon?

Answer 1

Run gpedit.msc and enable Do not show the "local access only" network icon which can be found under:

Local Computer Policy > Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Network > Network Connections

Restart your PC or disable/enable the network card to take effect

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If you have an AD server, you can find this setting under Group Policy Management so you don't have to do each computer individually (if there are more than one).

Answer 2

This isn't an answer but isolated LAN isn't the only case. A lot of corporate environments have very aggressive traffic blocking and thus this icon will pop up because of a firewall preventing the endpoint from communicating with the public server that Windows uses to determine internet connectivity.

Personally I think NLA and NCSI should take this into consideration and do something a bit less intrusive to determine internet connectivity. I think if you can resolve a hostname to an IP publicly and ping that IP successfully you're for the most part "on the internet" and no yellow bang needed at that point.

If you are in that situation and simply want to clear a path rather than disable the icon (which I dislike as a solution outside of isolated LAN situations as you may need to know when it's NOT crying wolf) you can create a rule in your topology that allows FULL access to this location:

http://www.msftncsi.com/ncsi.txt

And subsequently the file itself. THAT is why it doesn't work properly a lot. The file. reducing the verification to ping response to let's say www.google.com or whatever MS wishes to use would be way better. Sure you COULD be in a situation where DNS and pings work but "the internet" does not... but that's VERY rare and usually it's NOT on your end but public equipment. So there's nothing you'd be able to do to fix it. The yellow bang is more to bring it to your attention anyhow.