Wireshark Loopback Windows
How to capture traffic from the loopback interface using Wireshark in Windows Submitted by Francisco Porcel on Mon, - 20:29 If you are a Windows user and have ever needed to capture traffic from the loopback interface, you will probably have struggled to do so. Installing & running Wireshark on loopback remotely & silently, or alternatives We have Kiosk systems running either Windows 7 or Windows 10 IOT. These systems are running a. WireShark copy this SourceHandle to the loopback NETBUFFERLIST in the receive direction but when the uper layer of the WireShark receive NETBUFFERLIST it see different Source Handle then it expect and think this is a normal loopback NETBUFFERLIST and send it forward. While the Loopback wiki page does mention RawCap, it perhaps should expand on its use.For example, if you want to view live traffic in Wireshark, you can still do it by running RawCap from one command-line and running Wireshark from another. Nmap Packet Capture (NPcap) NPcap is the Windows version of the libpcap library; it includes a driver to support capturing packets. Wireshark can use this library to capture live network data on Windows. General information about the NPcap project can be found at the NPcap web site. Built on the tried-and-true WinPcap codebase, with a host of exciting new features, and extensively tested with currently-supported versions of Windows, Npcap is the future of WinPcap. Ready to give Npcap a try? Just download the latest installer. Npcap works great with Wireshark, Nmap, and more of your favorite tools already. Sep 03, 2019 You do not need a loopback adapter on your PC, unless you are using software like Wireshark or other software to monitor network traffic and your WiFi should work perfectly well without that virtual device.
Recently, after prompt initiated update, the Wireshark could no longer detect my ethernet interfaces, leaving only USBs on the list.
Since problems persisted after reboot I decided to reinstall Wireshark with all the same options. The situation didn't improve, at which point begun to suspect the driver.
Quick check gave me conflicting information.
So apprentlly, the service was present, but couldn't start, because relevant file was missing. With Wireshark still coming up empty, I decided to uninstall npcap also, and start with a clean slate.
Unfortunately, uninstalling Npcap turned out to be harder than I thought, failing and producing following log:
Reading service options from registry
Windows CurrentVersion: 10.0 (Win10)
Trying to stop the driver.
Stopping the npf driver
The Npcap Packet Driver (NPF) service is not started.
More help is available by typing NET HELPMSG 3521.
Stopping the npcap driver
The Npcap Packet Driver (NPCAP) service is not started.
More help is available by typing NET HELPMSG 3521.
Npcap service is not pending to stop.
Npcap. Device manager also detected the Npcap loopback interface.

So the driver service wasn't running but apparently some vestige of it remained. As a test, I tried to reinstall Wireshark, along with Npcap.
To my surprise, the Wireshark detected Npcap (of appropriate version) and didn't let me install it again.
And finally, I checked the:
To see if the relevant files are present, only to find both of them.
This is all the more vexing, because I have the same version running on my laptop. I don't know where to go from here.
migrated from serverfault.comMay 5 at 16:30
This question came from our site for system and network administrators.
1 Answer
The issue were old Npcap drivers in Windows driver store file repository. Ernie ball forums. For reasons beyond my knowledge neither the installation or removal procedure detected them.
While I'm not completely sure how, these leftovers blocked installation of full Ncap driver suite. To remove them I used following batch script (from Jonatan Van Hove):
Afterwards I simply reinstalled Wireshark, to find it's functionality restored. So far I haven't encountered any further issues.
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The loopback adapter is quite a useful tool that was designed for testing out the network configurations. Over many years, some resourceful geeks and administrators have founded that the Loopback adapter has some handy features as well like connecting two computers without a crossover cable or connecting a virtual machine to the Internet. Though the Loopback Adapter has a strong background, yet Microsoft seems to be hiding this feature in every new release of Windows. Before we continue to learn how to enable this feature, let me tell you why you need it.
Why You Need Loopback Adapter?
The Loopback adapter is used as a testing tool for virtual network environment when the network access isn’t available. Moreover, you also need to use it with network adapter or a network adapter driver. This feature also allows you to bind network configuration items, protocols and network clients. If we some up the overall use of Loopback adapter, then I would say that is a multi-purpose features used for managing IPs, BGP Peer Address, router ID interfaces, etc. I hope that now you have a better idea of Loopback adapter, so let’s continue to learn to enable this feature.
Here is a step-by-step guide with relevant images, explaining you how to enable this feature in Windows 10. You may notice that Microsoft has renamed it from “Microsoft Loopback Adapter” to “Microsoft KM-TEST Loopback Adapter”.
Enable Loopback Adapter
1: In the search bar, right next to the Windows icon, type “Device Manager”. From the displayed results, tap on the “Device Manager”.
Wireshark Loopback Windows Update
2: From the device manager window, click on action, and then from the drop down box, click on “Add legacy hardware”.
3: From the “Add Hardware” window, click on “Install the hardware that I manually select from a list (Advanced)” and after that click Next.
Wireshark Npcap Loopback Adapter
4: Now choose “Network adapters” and click Next.
Wireshark Loopback Windows 10
5: Navigate “Microsoft” from the left pane under the manufacturer section. Next choose Microsoft KM-TEST Loopback adapter, and click Next until it’s finished.
6: Congratulations! You have now successfully enabled the loopback adapter.
I hope the guide was useful, and you have had no issues at any point. In case there is a hurdle, please let us know in comments and we’ll get back to you in the least time possible. I recommend you to subscribe to our blog as PingZic will also be sharing some tips on using the Loopback adapter for some network diagnostics and other tests. Along with this, we have many other upcoming trending post in our Windows 10 section. Stay Tuned for More!
I’m on build 14393 and its still there. For some reason the ‘action’ menu doesn’t have the “Add legacy hardware” option until you select a category in the device manager tree.