Can anyone shed some light on the default items in the Network Adapters branch of the Windows Device Manager? In addition to the network card, there are always a bunch of other things that I cannot find any useful information on such as RAS Asynch Adapter and all the WAN Miniports (IKEv2, IP(v6), L2TP, Network Monitor, PPPOE, PPTP, SSTP).

I would like to trim it down and uninstall whatever possible but cannot find out exactly what these items are responsible for (and therefore whether or not they are needed on my system). Most of the pages found with Google are either people trying to fix an error with such an item or someone asking what it is and being given an unhelpful, pat response like “just leave them alone” or “they’re necessary”. I highly doubt that is the case and I’m certain that at least some items can be removed because even if they become necessary in the future they can be added again (for example installing Network Monitor or Protowall reinstalls the miniport drivers anyway).

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3 Answers

They're not extraneous. Those are essentially drivers for various types of network connections. For example, the WAN Miniport (PPTP) adapter (driver) is used when making a VPN connection to a PPTP VPN server. The WAN Miniport (PPOE) adapter (driver) would be used when your computer is connected directly to a PPOE broadband modem. Removing these adapters (drivers) would break the functionallity that these adapters (drivers) provide.

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I was getting Event ID Error 3 WiFiSession errors when viewing the Event Viewer and I don't even have wifi on this desktop. Searching why I was getting this error I was led to believe it was the Network Adapters (googling the error) and when in Device Manager then showing Hidden Devices I too had listed under my LAN adapter (GBE Realtek) there were 8 WAN Mini-port items greyed/lite blued out.. when I uninstalled them those errors in Event Viewer stopped.

Correct, you shouldn’t need them all in every environment. You might like to make a system image backup (option, option, citation) before making major changes.

Best as I can find out:

PPPOE is for connecting your machine directly to DSL without using a router. Or for creating a hot spot.

PPP might be for using your computer to extend your network.

I don’t know what the RAS Async Adapter is. I suspect it might be related to Azure server, but I cannot find out for sure.

I also don’t know about the network monitors.

IKeV2, L2TP, SST, PPTP, and GRE are VPN/remote access configurations.

I would tend to upgrade, then disable, and see if security or performance improves. Some of this you may never need, but you may later decide to, say, load a security solution containing a VPN so you can take your laptop or mobile device to a coffee shop or hospital and secure your connection there.

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