Nerd Tips: Windows Opens Multiple Pages to MSN When Internet Fails

[Rev.Cambeul]

It's a Windows 10/11 issue. Every time your internet disconnects, Windows attempts to open https://www.msn.com/ as a connection test. Once connected, it stops. If not, it opens another page or browser tab every five minutes. It either fails and does it again five minutes later, or succeeds and stops.

Why? Some believe Microsoft and accept that it's a worthwhile test. I believe it's just another way for Microsoft to force their advertising.

Solved: You can disable it via setting the following registry entry from 1 to 0:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\NlaSvc\Parameters\Internet\EnableActiveProbing

How? Click Run or Press Windows Key + R
Type REGEDIT
Hit Enter to open the Registry Editor
Find the registry entry and change the setting

Alternatively, if you do not want to go through all these manual steps, then you can download disable-msft-ncsi.zip, extract the files to a folder and double-click on disable-network-probing.reg and proceed with prompts. Similarly, the enable-network-probing.reg file is meant to restore the default values for NCSI.

https://www.trishtech.com/downloads/disable-msft-ncsi.zip