Disable Internet Access Detection

Goals

Remove Warnings in system tray about Internet access

Windows will try to connect to Microsoft servers from time to time just to see if you have general Internet connectivity. When the Microsoft servers aren't reachable, then Windows can do useful things like trying to warn you about it.

One such warning is the yellow icon on in the system tray. Since our lab obviously does not have Internet access, that icon would normally stay on forever. Since that is a little too alarming, we can disable it with some group policy settings.

Procedures

Since we are not a member of a Windows Domain (a collection of computers managed together), we actually need to edit the local policy

Open the local policy Editor

• Open Local Policy Editor

Set a group Policy

http://www.itgeared.com/articles/1074-how-to-mange-network-connectivity/

Navigate to the icon policy

• Navigate to Local Computer Policy
  • Computer Configuration
    • Administrative Templates
      • Network
        • Network Connections
• Double click on Do not show the "local access only" network icon

Set the policy

All policy entries are "Not configured" by default, setting a policy to anything else is sets it as described

• Select Enabled for this policy
• Leave a useful comment so we know this was intentional, and why you did it

Navigate to connectivity status indicator policy

• Navigate to Local Computer Policy
  • Computer Configuration
    • Administrative Templates
      • System
        • Internet Communication Management
          • Internet Communication Settings
• Double-click on Turn off Windows Network Connectivity Status Indicator

Set the policy

All policy entries are "Not configured" by default, setting a policy to anything else is sets it as described

• Select Enabled for this policy
• Leave a useful comment so we know this was intentional, and why you did it

Reboot

You don't need to reboot now, but after you do the warning icon should be gone: