Wednesday 19 November 2014

How to set up Wireless Hotspot along with a WiFi Connection - Windows 7 and 8

Hello All,

Many of you must have wondered if there is a way to create a hotspot by sharing a your pre-existing wireless WiFi connection. Yes, this is possible in just a few simple steps in your Windows 7 and 8 PCs. Though there are software out there that can create a WiFi Hotspot for you, this tutorial utilizes the existing resources that comes with Windows 7.

Requirements:
  • A pre-existing wireless internet connection
  • Windows 7/8

Now moving to the Steps:
1. Enable your Microsoft Virtual WiFi Miniport Adapter
To enable the Virtual Adapter, open the Run dialog ("Windows Key" + "R") with administrator privileges.

Note: Administrator privileges are necessary in order to run the "netsh" command that does the magic.

To open with administrator privileges, click on the Start Menu and type "cmd" in the search box, you will see a cmd.exe program.
Right click on cmd.exe and click on Run as Administrator

Once the CMD is open type in the following command:

netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid=MyHotspot key=Password keyUsage=persistent

where "Hotspot" is the SSID (name of your connection) and "Password" is the password of your Hotspot

Once this is done, you have enabled the Microsoft Virtual WiFi Miniport Adapter.


2. Sharing your Wireless Internet Connection and Enabling Microsoft Virtual WiFi Miniport Adapter
Make sure you are connected to Internet using your WiFi connection
Then Navigate to "Network Connections" by opening the "Network and Sharing Center"
Once you are inside the Network and Sharing Center, click on the "Change Adapter Settings" link in the left hand side of the Window.
Find the "Microsoft Virtual WiFi Miniport Adapter", right click on it and select Enable if not already done.

Once it is enabled, right click on the "Wireless Network Connection" button, click Properties.
In the properties dialog, click on the Sharing tab.
Once in the sharing tab, click the check box labelled "Allow other network users to connect through this Computer's Internet Connection".
Then in the dropdown box labelled "Select a private network connection", select the Microsoft Virtual WiFi Miniport Adapter which should be labelled as "Wireless Network Connection 2".

Click OK and the Wireless Network Connection button should now say shared.


3. Starting and Stopping the Wireless hotspot
Again open Command Prompt as explained above with admin privileges and type the command below and press Enter-

netsh wlan start hostednetwork

The output should say - "The hosted network started"

You are done, just check the connection on your phone and you should see a new WiFi named Hotspot

Note:
  1. To disable the hotspot it is best to run the command - netsh wlan stop hostednetwork
  2. Every time you shut down the system, this will turn off by itself so when you restart your system, you need to perform step 3 again in order to start the Hotspot 
Do comment if this solution worked for you or if you face any difficulties so that we can get it sorted, Thanks.


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