Visualize Your Network in A Built-in Network Map in Windows 7

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Want to know what your network topologic looks like? Let’s take look it in a network map made by the Windows 7 built-in tool.

First of all, open the Network and Sharing Center by simply clicking on Start and typing in “Network and Sharing”.

image39 - Visualize Your Network in A Built-in Network Map in Windows 7

Then, click on See Full Map icon in the Network and Sharing Center.

image40 - Visualize Your Network in A Built-in Network Map in Windows 7

And here it is what my home network looks like, very simple. 🙂

image41 - Visualize Your Network in A Built-in Network Map in Windows 7

Pretty decent, I would say. Not that the straight line means the wired connection while the dotted line means wireless connection.

If your Windows 7 connects through different network, you can view different network map by switching the network from the top dropdown menu.

image42 - Visualize Your Network in A Built-in Network Map in Windows 7

When you move your mouse over the devices, it even shows you some of the network information about that device, e.g. IP address, MAC address, etc.

image43 - Visualize Your Network in A Built-in Network Map in Windows 7

If there are any discovered devices that cannot be placed in the network, it will put them at the bottom of the map.

image44 - Visualize Your Network in A Built-in Network Map in Windows 7

Limitations:

  • You won’t be able to see it if you are on a domain network, which probably means you are in a corporate network, as it’s disabled in Group Policy by default.
  • You also won’t be able to see it either if your network is set as a public network. Only Home Network, Work Network, and Sharing Center are available in full network map.

This built-in network map feature is cool and useful, but is also quite basic in terms of creating a nice complete network diagram. In that case, you might need some 3rd party tools to help you with. And here is a question to our reader,

If you know a good open source software that does decent job creating nice, professional network diagram, please share it in the comment.

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