You’ve got an Internet connection via a network cable, but you want to have your other computers and devices get Internet connections wirelessly. Can you do this? Can you make your Windows computer run like a WiFi router?
The short answer is a qualified, ‘Yes.’ The key component in this process is making sure that your Windows computer has a wireless network card. If you have that installed properly, then you can turn your Windows computer into a WiFi hotspot and share your Internet connection.
How Does This All Work?
Most WiFi cards for PCs can be used to share wired Internet connections, wirelessly. Mind you, it does take some software, or special configuring, to use that capability. Essentially, the software or configuration is what will act as the ‘virtual router’ to enable your computer to share that Internet connection. We’re going to look at a few different ways that you can do this on a Windows computer, as well as the positives and negatives of each method.
Ad-Hoc Wireless Connection via Windows Menus
Ad-hoc is a Latin phrase meaning ‘for this’. It is meant to describe something that is set up for this particular purpose only. Often it is something of a temporary nature with minimal setup, planning, or support. There are two ways to set up an ad-hoc wireless network in Windows: one is through the graphical menus, and the other is through the command line interface. Let’s take a look at the graphical menus first.
Click on your Start Menu, then Control Panel, then Network and Sharing Center. You’ll see the following window:
Now click on Set up a new connection or network. When the new window opens, scroll down until you see Set up a wireless ad hoc (computer-to-computer) network. Highlight that option by clicking once on it, then click the Next button.
You’ll now see a window that explains what an ad-hoc wireless network is and it tells you a few things about it. The most important thing to note is that any devices using the ad-hoc wireless network must be within 30 feet of each other, in any direction. Consider that as a maximum upper limit, as so many other things can affect the range of a wireless signal. Expect maybe half of that. You can optimize the range by following a few tips on what we’ve come to call wireless feng shui.
The second most important thing to note is that if you create an ad-hoc wireless connection, any wireless connection you have to a device right now will be dropped. So, if you think you can connect wirelessly to one network and share that network wirelessly with others – you can’t. It’s one or the other. Click the Next button to move on to the next window.
This window is where you set the name of your network and what kind of security it has on it. It is recommended to use the WPA2-Personal choice for Security type.This gives you the best security you can get with an ad-hoc connection like this. Use a password that you don’t mind giving to other people. Don’t recycle a passwordyou use for other things like Facebook or banking. You’ll soon regret that, if you do. If you intend to set up an ad-hoc wireless network again in the future, you can check the box that reads Save this network and click the Next button.
Congratulations! You’ve just created an ad-hoc wireless network! Share it with your friends and family as you see fit.
The problems with this kind of connection aren’t many, but it isn’t the most universal solution. People with Windows 7 or earlier trying to connect with non-Windows devices have had some difficulties and have had to investigate deeply to find out how to configure their non-Windows devices in order to connect.
Sometimes, the issue is that the device isn’t compatible with the type of security or encryption that your ad-hoc wireless network is set up to use. Sometimes, it’s a matter of the firewall on the host computer blocking the devices from connecting. Sometimes, you can solve the problem by assigning static IP addresses to your connecting devices. Sometimes, it doesn’t seem like there’s a good reason at all why it won’t work.
No comments:
Post a Comment