How to Change Network Profile in Registry for 2008 Server

In a previous post I wrote about how to change the network location or "firewall profile" in Windows Server 2012 using PowerShell as you could no longer do this from the GUI like you could in previous versions of Windows Server. This article can be found under the following URL:

http://clintboessen.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/how-to-change-your-network-profile-in.html

However yesterday I had a problem at a customer running Windows Server 2008 where I was unable to change the network location from the GUI using Network and Sharing Centre and as a result I had to revert to the registry.  Tracking down the registry key responsible for the network profile was a difficult task so I decided to blog this one.

All network profiles are located under the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\NetworkList\Profiles

Each network card will be represented below in a sub key with a GUID.  The Network Location is controlled by a DWORD value called Category.

Public = 0
Home = 1
Domain = 2

As you see my category is set to 2 which means this network adapter is using the Domain Firewall profile.

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