A network adapter is a piece of hardware that connects a computer to a network. A laptop, for example, typically has two network adapters, one for the Ethernet connection and one for the wireless connection. A network adapter, like any other hardware component of a computer, has its own representation on the operating system and can be configured, disabled, or deleted.
With PowerShell you can easily view all active network adapters:
Get-NetAdapter | ? status -eq up
You can disable a network adapter by using the following PowerShell command line:
Disable-NetAdapter -Name “<NetworkAdapter to be disabled>”