I was attempting to configure a mobile broadband connection on a Windows 10 machine. By some miracle I managed to create a dial-up connection with an empty name, which I now cannot delete via normal means: any attempt produces no effect. Any other kind of interaction attempt (renaming, viewing properties, connecting) likewise has no result, at best shows an error message.
I was hoping to erase this phantom connection directly form the underlying configuration storage, but I don’t know where that is. I tried searching with the Registry Editor to no avail.
Where do those settings reside?
01 Answer
Dial-up connection settings are not kept in the Registry, but in a dedicated file. The path to this file is %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Network\Connections\Pbk\rasphone.pbk. Fortunately enough, this is an INI file, so it can be directly edited in Notepad; no need to delete it and re-create all connections from scratch.
(I found that the connection’s name was the newline character. No wonder it couldn’t be deleted.)
As for how I found it: I created a shortcut to the connection on the Desktop. I opened the shortcut with Notepad, and surely enough, the path to that file was inside. (Perhaps this technique will be useful for other purposes.)
