Solution for WiFi issues with Windows 8.1 Preview

Last week during Microsoft’s Build event for developers, they released the Windows 8.1 preview which brings not only a slew of new features for Windows 8 but also tons of added amazing developer tools. Some of those who updated early to Windows 8.1 Preview, including me, had issues with WiFi. It acted as if the network hardware was not working at all due to not showing any nearby wifi networks. Either the issue was a driver update or something else to troubleshoot. I was searching on Twitter for possible solutions but it seems no one knew what was going on. A twitter friend (Isham) was working with me to find some answers and he was contacted by his friend that promised would fix this issue. Well basically, Isham wrote up a blog post after the solution was found so here it is: ( IT WORKS!)

Tumblr blog post (if you want the link to Isham’s blog post)

All credit goes to him, here’s his actual post quoted:

All early up-daters of Windows 8.1 had a problem with WiFi, most of them had Atheros WiFi device. The problem was conflict of drivers, that is Windows 8.1 automatically conflicts Atheros drivers with Realtek drivers. I personally posted a question in answers.microsoft.com and I tweeted this problems to a Windows MVP named Richard Hay, A programmer named Rephael Martiez and the official Windows support twitter account. I posted my tweets on 27th June 2013 and for two days no answer at all. Richard hay said this is a driver compatibility issue. Rephael said he is also having the same issue. Official Windows support people are yet to support me. They said its will take 72 hours to get support. I mentioned Lenovo in my tweets but those folks never consider me ( I use Lenovo G570).

So NO ONE SUPPORTED ME WITH THIS ISSUE BUTGOD. On 29 th June about 6.30 I found the solution for this problem and its working 100%, THANKS الله.

This is my solution.

Install Atheros driver which was working well for you in your Windows 7 or Windows 8.

Open “Device manager”. Still you have the conflicting “Realtek driver”

Uninstall it and right click on Atheros WLAN driver