Use commandline to show disabled network interfaces in windows? (Mobile Broadband and Regular Connections)

I found this command seems to work:

wmic nic get NetConnectionID

It shows regular connection interfaces including those that have been disabled however it only shows the name of the interface.

netsh interface show interface will show:

Admin State (Enabled or Disabled) State (Connected or Disconnected) Type: (Dedicated) And Interface Name : (local Area Connection or Wireless)


Make sure that you are using an elevated command-prompt, otherwise it won’t have access to everything and may not be able to show disabled interfaces as expected (figure 1). For example, I was unable to use the admin=disable parameter from a non-elevated prompt.

Technically, it should still be able to read the NICs from a non-elevated prompt—I was able to see all interfaces (figure 2) including disabled ones—so your system may have some policies or something in place that prevents it from working from a non-elevated one.


Figure 1: Screenshot of elevated command prompt showing disabled interfaces

Screenshot of elevated command prompt showing disabled interfaces

Figure 2: Screenshot of non-elevated command prompt showing disabled interfaces

Screenshot of non-elevated command prompt showing disabled interfaces