What to Do When Windows 10 Fails to See Network Adapter After the Upgrade

By Zubair Alexander

- On August 1, 2015

When you upgrade Windows 10 from Windows 7 or Windows 8/8.1 you may discover that the Device Manager can see the network interface card (NIC) installed and will report that it is working properly but in Control Panel the Networking and Sharing Center will not see the network adapter at all. Obviously, you won't be able to connect to the Internet or another computer on the network. In addition, the wireless services won't work either. Although the wireless adapter will seem to work, Windows 10 will not be able to find any wireless networks. This is a rather strange behavior because Windows is able to find the NIC, install the driver and verify that it is working properly yet the NIC is not just disabled, it doesn't exist at all in the Networking and Sharing Center. You can remove the NIC in Device Manager and reinstall it, reboot the computer or try every other trick you can possibly imagine but Windows 10 will not see your NIC. While there might be other reasons for this strange behavior but based on what various forums are reporting, it seems to be almost always due to Cisco VPN client software, such as Cisco AnyConnect VPN client for Windows 8, or Cisco Systems VPN client for Windows 7 and Windows 8. SOLUTION Ideally what you need to do is remove the Cisco VPN client completely from the computer that will be upgraded to Windows 10 and then upgrade to Windows 10. However, if you have already upgraded to Windows 10 and are stuck, don't worry. You can still get Windows 10 upgraded without any damage to your system or data. Here's what you need to do.

Let's assume that you upgraded Windows 10 from Windows 8.1. In the newly upgraded Windows 10, go to the Search box next to Windows start button and type Windows 8.1.
The first result you will see will be Go back to Windows 8.1.
Select the option and go through the steps to revert back to Windows 8.1. Microsoft has done a good job of making the process to revert back to the previous version very simple and reliable and very quick. NOTE: You will have 30 days from the time you upgrade to Windows 10 to revert back to your old operating system.
After you are back in Windows 8.1 you will see the option in Control Panel -> Windows Update to upgrade to Windows 10. Before you upgrade you need to remove Cisco VPN client software from your computer. You don't need to reboot the computer after removing the software.
Once Cisco VPN client has been successfully removed, run the upgrade process again on your Windows 8.1.
When the computer is updated to Windows 10 your network card should be working fine.

Additional Reading Windows 10 Upgrade is Now Available - Learn How to Get Your Free Copy