Can anyone shed some light on the default items in the Network Adapters branch of the Windows Device Manager? In addition to the network card, there are always a bunch of other things that I cannot find any useful information on such as RAS Asynch Adapter and all the WAN Miniports (IKEv2, IP(v6), L2TP, Network Monitor, PPPOE, PPTP, SSTP).

I would like to trim it down and uninstall whatever possible but cannot find out exactly what these items are responsible for (and therefore whether or not they are needed on my system). Most of the pages found with Google are either people trying to fix an error with such an item or someone asking what it is and being given an unhelpful, pat response like “just leave them alone” or “they’re necessary”. I highly doubt that is the case and I’m certain that at least some items can be removed because even if they become necessary in the future they can be added again (for example installing Network Monitor or Protowall reinstalls the miniport drivers anyway).