Windows 10 22H2 treats my XBOX Wireless Adapter as an Ethernet Network Adapter to Nowhere

A Warning

For the amount of frustration the problem has caused and for how much work I am putting into this write-up, if anyone responds to this with any of following...

• "uninstall and reinstall the driver"
• "reboot the system"
• "run sfc /scannow"
• "Reinstall <fill-in-the-blank> driver
• Any other boilerplate, worthless solution

...then I will respond to those comments with dad jokes and puns to highlight the fact that it is not helpful and I am not interested in boosting your number of posts on this forum for reputational purposes. I need actual help because this issue is extremely annoying, is crippling, and is preventing me from getting the most optimal setup. Please do not waste people's time with worthless solutions because you did not actually bother to read.

PS: I will also bump this thread consistently until I get the right answer. I also invite anyone else with this problem to chime in that I am not alone - because I know I am not.

Summarize the problem

My Windows 10 22H2 system thinks my XBOX wireless adapter is an Ethernet connection whenever I try to use to an actual Ethernet connection to get to the Internet, and it disconnects me from the actual Ethernet connection to the XBOX wireless adapter. This majorly hinders the ability to use the Internet as Windows will send packets to nowhere. I need Microsoft to fix this with either a new driver for the XBOX wireless adapter -or- an update to Windows networking that makes it recognize what is actually a network adapter and what is not.

Be descriptive (and Explain what you already tried)

I recently attempted to switch from WiFi to using wired Ethernet to use Wake-on-LAN capabilities and improve speeds. Immediately upon doing this, I began noticing performance issues, "glitchy" behavior. I noticed that, despite repeated speed tests showing a 33% increase in raw throughput, pages were taking longer to load and eventually that I was unable to download large files (download speeds would start amazingly high and then collapse to 0bps prior to the browser erroring out with "Network issues" warnings).

I initially thought something weird had been cached with the browsers that hadn't caught up with the change to the Ethernet, so I did the following:

• uninstalled and reinstalled multiple browsers
• Ran sfc /scannow from an administrator prompt
• Attempted to download the large files I wanted from a different wired system (which worked beautifully)
• Right-clicked on my Internet connection icon and ran through the "Troubleshoot problems" wizard, which did not find anything wrong
• Checked to see if I was still connected to the Internet on my Windows computer... which was when I realized some weird "Ethernet 7" adapter was reporting it was not connected to the Internet (and then other times would report my actual Ethernet adapter)

I clicked on Ethernet 7 to see and found, to my dismay, that Windows was looking at my XBOX wireless adapter as if it were a wired Ethernet adapter. That is not going to work obviously, so I began digging and found that this has been encountered before with no resolution that I could see:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/xbox/forum/all/xbox-one-controller-wireless-pc-adapter-shows-up/eefc3c91-1871-4869-8730-ca1379e5a764

This is not on my XBOX. It is on a Windows PC, and this is clearly a driver-related or Windows networking issue that Microsoft needs to fix.

This issue only occurs when using an actual Ethernet connection to the Internet. I disconnected the XBOX wireless adapter thinking that would help, but it still attempted to use the XBOX adapter (which was puzzling; maybe the driver is installed as an Ethernet adapter and because the driver is still there and is registered as an Ethernet adapter?)

The workaround currently is to switch back to WiFi, where I lose Wake-on-LAN and 33% at least of possible throughput. I also do not want to uninstall the XBOX wireless adapter driver because then I cannot use the controller for games. The proper solution is to fix Windows to stop treating the adapter as an Ethernet connection, and that is what I am requesting.

Paste the error message

There is no error message to copy/paste other other than the browser reporting network issues:

• "Couldn't download - Network Issue" (Microsoft Edge Version 119.0.2151.58 (Official build) (64-bit))

Include system information

OS

• Microsoft Windows 10 22H2
• Build 10.0.19045 Build 19045.3636
• Fully up-to-date as of 15 November 2023 (most recent update is KB5032339)

Data about the XBOX Wireless Adapter when it is being treated as Ethernet 7 (Ethernet connected to Internet)

• Link speed (Receive/Transmit): 0/150000000 (bps)
• Manufacturer: Microsoft Corporation
• Description: Xbox Wireless Adapter for Windows
• Driver version: 21.50.45.656
• Physical address (MAC): 62-45-B4-E7-A4-EF

Data about the XBOX wireless adapter when it is being seen as an XBOX Wireless Adapter (WiFi connected to Internet)

From Device Manager:

• Manufacturer: Microsoft
• Physical Device Object name: \Device\USBPDO-14
• Friendly Name: Xbox Wireless Adapter for Windows
• Display Name: Xbox Wireless Adapter for Windows
• Driver Key: {4d36e972-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}\0006
• Device Stack:
  • \Driver\mt7612US
  • \Driver\USBHUB3
  • \Driver\xboxgip
• Inf Section: MTWLAN.ndi.NT
• Driver Version: 21.50.45.656
• Driver Date: 12/8/2015

Screenshots

Depressingly, the uploader is not working. I will try in a response to my own post.

If you read this far, thank you! Please help!