The process for manufacturing a conductive film, said process being capable of achieving efficient progress of reduction of a metal oxide into a metal and yielding a conductive film which exhibits excellent adhesion to a substrate; and a printed wiring board. This process includes: a step for applying a dispersion which contains metal oxide particles to a substrate to form a precursor film which contains the particles; and a step for irradiating the precursor film with a continuous-wave laser beam while scanning the laser beam relatively, and thereby reducing the metal oxide in an irradiated area to form a metal-containing conductive film. In the process, the scanning speed is 1.0 m/s or more, the laser power of the continuous-wave laser beam is 6.0 W or more, and the irradiation time per point on the surface of the precursor film is 1.0 μs or more.