Disable the “Set Network Location” dialog in Vista

This week I got a Windows Vista question that sounded easy, but turned out to be one of those things missing as a policy configurable option.

Whenever Windows Vista is connected to a new network, the system presents the "Set Network Location" dialog requesting to categorize the newly connected network as one of the following:

• Home
• Work
• Public Location

Public is the only option that can be chosen without using administrative rights on the system.

When an admin does not want this dialog to pop when one of his mobile computers is connected to non-trusted network, there is no option in Group Policy to stop the dialog from occurring.

The user has the option to disable the dialog from the UI:

• Right Click the network icon in the system tray
• Click Turn off/on notification of new networks

 This is not the ideal option for the average admin. So this can be arranged from the registry:

• On a per user basis

  • Set the value "Show" (REG_DWORD) to 0 in
    HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Network\NwCategoryWizard

• At the system level

  • Create a new Registry key (without any value) NewNetworkWindowOff in HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Network\NewNetworkWindowOff

Source : xpworld.spaces.live.com