Add "netsh wlan set autoconfig enabled=no interface="Wi-Fi"" before streaming starts

[psykokwak-com]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

I experience periodic streaming jitter/stutter when using Moonlight from my laptop over WiFi. The root cause is Windows WLAN AutoConfig background scanning — Windows periodically forces the WiFi adapter to leave the current channel to scan for available networks, causing latency spikes of 50–400ms.

Ping to Sunshine host (192.168.255.15) — spikes every ~30s:

Reply from 192.168.255.15: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.255.15: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.255.15: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.255.15: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.255.15: bytes=32 time=17ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.255.15: bytes=32 time=25ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.255.15: bytes=32 time=33ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.255.15: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.255.15: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.255.15: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.255.15: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=128

This is a different issue from the Intel driver-level "Global BG Scan Blocking" setting and addressed via WlanSetInterface with wlan_intf_opcode_background_scan_enabled). The WLAN AutoConfig scanning is an OS-level scan that happens independently of the driver-level scan, and persists even with:

• Intel Global BG Scan Blocking set to "Always"
• wlan_intf_opcode_background_scan_enabled set to FALSE
• Packet Coalescing disabled
• Power Saving Mode disabled
• Roaming Aggressiveness set to Lowest

Describe the solution you'd like

Running this command before streaming completely eliminates the jitter:

netsh wlan set autoconfig enabled=no interface="Wi-Fi"

However, this disables WiFi network discovery — the user can no longer see or connect to available networks until it is re-enabled:

netsh wlan set autoconfig enabled=yes interface="Wi-Fi"

It would be great if Moonlight could automatically disable WLAN AutoConfig when streaming starts and re-enable it when streaming ends. This could be implemented as:

• A built-in option (e.g., a checkbox "Disable WiFi background scanning during streaming")
• Or via the existing pre/post stream command hooks, but a native implementation would be more reliable (handles crashes/force-quit gracefully to ensure autoconfig is restored)

Note: This requires administrator privileges to execute. Moonlight would need to either run elevated or use a helper service/scheduled task.

Additional context

• OS: Windows 11
• WiFi adapter: Intel Killer Wi-Fi 6E AX1675i (AX211) — driver 24.20.2.1
• Access point: ASUS ZenWiFi XT8 (AiMesh, 5GHz, channel 36)
• The WlanSetInterface API with wlan_intf_opcode_background_scan_enabled returned error 50 (NOT_SUPPORTED) on this driver version, so the existing Moonlight workaround for Intel BG scanning does not work here. The netsh wlan set autoconfig approach works regardless of the driver.
• This likely affects all WiFi adapters on Windows, not just Intel — WLAN AutoConfig scanning is an OS-level behavior.

[andygrundman]

This isn't something that Moonlight should be doing, it's something you should either try to automate or disable completely.

That said, for a while Moonlight has had generic code that in theory should already tell the OS or wifi driver or whatever that it should switch to low latency mode. If you see the log message "WLAN interface %d is now in low latency mode" then it tried to do this.

            // Enable media streaming mode for 802.11 wireless interfaces to reduce latency and
            // unneccessary background scanning operations that cause packet loss and jitter.
            //
            // https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/network/oid-wdi-set-connection-quality
            // https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/hardware/wireless/native-802-11-media-streaming

[psykokwak-com]

@andygrundman, thank you for your message.

I did see that code snippet, but it doesn't work the same way as the command:
netsh wlan set autoconfig enabled=no interface="Wi-Fi"

In that case, it would be necessary to configure the automatic execution of commands at the start and end of streaming (like Sunshine does).
It could be great to add this feature in moonlight parameters.

[psykokwak-com]

I fixed the issue with the following PR : moonlight-stream/moonlight-common-c#132

[psykokwak-com]

I also built the 6.1.0 version with the fix. It also require administrator rights to work: Moonlight.zip
Just replace the Moonlight.exe from your installation directory with this one.

[ns6089]

The root cause is Windows WLAN AutoConfig background scanning — Windows periodically forces the WiFi adapter to leave the current channel to scan for available networks, causing latency spikes of 50–400ms.

This shouldn't happen automatically without manually enabled it. Might be a bug... somewhere.

The option is visible when you click Edit in advanced properties.

[psykokwak-com]

I wasn't aware of this option. I haven't tested it.
In that case, it should be tested and added to the Moonlight documentation.

[ns6089]

I've just run a few long tests on AX203, Windows 11, latest official driver with default options, wifi-5 and no mesh. Windows itself doesn't initiate any unexpected scans, but there's the driver-side scan happening at exactly 10-minute interval. Thankfully the solution described here still works as expected.

[psykokwak-com]

I tried this manipulation, but it didn't totally solve the problem for me. There was also the scan every 30 seconds of Windows