20
8
Is there an option in Windows 7 (or 3rd party) to offer Tethering (that is, act as a WiFi hotspot while being connected to a WiFi network?)
20
8
Is there an option in Windows 7 (or 3rd party) to offer Tethering (that is, act as a WiFi hotspot while being connected to a WiFi network?)
6
Take a look at Connectify: http://connectify.me
24
A detailed step-by-step to setup wifi tethering/hotspot in Windows 7, Windows 8 WITHOUT any 3rd party software:
From admin Command Prompt type:
netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid=mywifinetwork key=mysecretkey
Enable new virtual Wi-Fi adapter (it might be disabled upon creation)
From admin command prompt type:
netsh wlan start hostednetwork
From current internet conection adapter share (ICS) internet to the new virtual adapter
Connect from wireless client to virtual SSID. Wi-Fi client gets an auto IP and you're good to go.
After host computer restart you only need to repeat steps 3 & 5 to be up and running.
2How do I stop it? does netsh wlan stop hostednetwork work? – tumchaaditya – 2013-07-23T07:38:12.917
I got an error telling me that I need administrator privileges (which I had). Turns out that creating ad-hoc networks is disabled in our company (the error message is a bit misleading). You can check that via netsh wlan show filters
. – Florian Brucker – 2013-08-13T07:52:23.243
2
Create an ad-hoc network. Here is the guide for Windows 7 from the Microsoft site. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Set-up-a-computer-to-computer-ad-hoc-network
2
You could use the ad-supported Connectify app, as someone else mentioned, or use http://virtualrouter.codeplex.com/, or do it my hand with the netsh command and ICS with a little bit of effort:
netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid=YOURFRIENDLYSSID key=SOMEPASSWORD
netsh wlan start hostednetwork
... then share the real connection through the virtual WiFi NIC.
" then share the real connection through the virtual WiFi NIC." - how should one do that? – pihentagy – 2015-08-24T12:25:51.667
@pihentagy I'm not going to repeat everything here but you can find this online quite easily e. g. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/using-internet-connection-sharing#1TC=windows-7
– MikeBaz - MSFT – 2015-08-25T14:07:45.233http://virtualrouter.codeplex.com/ is a great alternative to the command prompt solution. I think it's just a GUI for the CMD option. Oh it's open source too! So that's always cool :) – Bram – 2015-11-18T08:37:31.223
1FWIW, I equate "ad-supported" with adware, whereas, unless it's changed since last I used it (unfortunately it causes my laptop to bluescreen when putting it to sleep - Broadcom, surprise surprise), it's "ad-supported" in the same sense that Adobe Reader and Java are, in that the installer asks you if you want to install the unwanted e.g. Google Toolbar with it. – Mark Sowul – 2011-02-28T22:01:34.383
5there's really no need for this since it's supported natively by win7 as shown in the answer by paktas. – Zoltán – 2012-12-01T08:00:37.450