How To Turn Your Windows 7 Laptop Into a WiFi Hotspot

While WiFi is essentially everywhere you look, sometimes while traveling, you’ll be in a situation where you only have a wired Ethernet connection. What happens then if you need to connect your “WiFi only” device to the internet? If you have a Windows 7 laptop, you can turn it into a WiFi hotspot and share its wireless connection with your device via an Ad Hoc network. Here’s how to do it without third-party utilities.

Note: Windows 8 has quietly removed this feature, but you can still do this with XP – Windows 7. And if you are running Windows 10, make sure to read our article on making Windows 10 a Wi-Fi hotspot.

What You’ll Need

• A Laptop with built-in WiFi capability
• A mobile device with WiFi capability (For example Kindle Fire HD, iPod touch, Nexus 7)
• A hard-wired Ethernet connection

Turn Your Windows 7 Laptop into a WiFi Hotspot

Click the wired network connection icon in the System Tray and select Open Network and Sharing Center.

In the screen that opens, click “Set Up a New Connection or Network” under Change your Network Settings.

Now select the bottom option to set up a wireless ad-hoc network.

The Wireless Ad Hoc Network wizard will start up. Click Next.

On the next screen, give your ad-hoc network a name, select your security type, and enter a security key. If you’re in a public place, I recommend WPA2 for the best security of your network.

It should just take a few seconds, and your ad-hoc network will be ready to use.

If you click the connection icon in the system tray, you’ll see the network you just created in the list waiting for users.

Then go to Network and Sharing Center and select Change Adapter Settings.

Then check “Allow other network users to connect through this computer’s Internet connection” and click OK.

Now you’ll be able to see the shared WiFi connection from your laptop on your mobile device. Just connect to it and you’ll have internet access on the device in no time.

How to Share Your Internet Connection in Windows Using Ethernet or Wi-Fi

By Avram Piltch 28 April 2020

Get Internet on any device by attaching it to your Windows 10 PC.

In many situations, you can connect all of your devices to the same Wi-Fi network so getting them online is no problem. But what happens when one of your devices doesn’t have access to the connection, either because there it doesn’t have Wi-Fi, there is no Wi-Fi or the access is restricted (as in a hotel that only allows one connection per room)? Fortunately, you can easily share your Internet connection in Windows 10 and you can do it over a direct Ethernet connection or by turning the host PC into a hotspot. The client device doesn’t even have to be running Windows.

The direct Ethernet solution comes in very handy when you have one device that has Wi-Fi helping another that doesn’t. Recently, I needed to share my Internet connection over Ethernet when I installed Ubuntu on a Raspberry Pi. The Pi has Wi-Fi, but I couldn’t get Ubuntu to support it out of the box so I just plugged my Raspberry Pi’s Ethernet port into an Ethernet-to-USB adapter, which I attached to my Windows laptop.

How to Share Your Internet in Windows Using Ethernet

1. Connect your client device to your host PC using an Ethernet cable. If either device doesn’t have a free Ethernet port, use a USB-to-Ethernet adapter.

2. Go to the Network Connections menu. The easiest way to get there is by searching for “Network Connections” in the Windows Search box.

3. Right click on the active Internet connection and select Properties.

4. Toggle “Allow other network users to connect” to on from the Sharing tab and select the relevant Ethernet port from the pulldown menu. Note that, if you have VPN software installed, you may see a lot of virtual Ethernet ports on your list and you’ll need to pick the real one.

After you click OK, Internet should flow to your client device over its Ethernet port.

How to Share Your Internet in Windows via Wi-Fi Hotspot

So let’s say your PC has a cellular connection and your friend’s laptop doesn’t or perhaps you have a desktop that’s connected via Ethernet but you need to get your tablet online and there’s no router. Turning your WIndows PC into a mobile hotspot for other devices is quite easy.

1. Navigate to the Mobile Hotspot settings menu. You can get there by typing “Mobile Hotspot” into the Windows search box.

2. Toggle “Share my Internet connection” to on.

3. Select the source of your Internet connection if it’s not already chosen by default. Chances are that, unless you have more than one Internet connection at once, the menu will show the correct source on its own.

4. Select Wi-Fi on the “Share my Internet connection over” menu if it’s not already selected.. Bluetooth is way too slow.

5. Click the Edit button under “Network band.”

6. Set the Network name, password and network band. This will be the SSID and password that your client devices need to connect. Note that, if you are sharing a 5-GHz Wi-Fi connection, your client devices will need to support 5 GHz also. Some older devices such as Raspberry Pi 3s and Zeros can only do 2.4 GHz

You should now be able to connect to your WIndows 10 PC from other devices, just like it was any other hotspot. However, when I tried this the first time, I got an error on my client device saying “failed to obtain IP address.” Perhaps that was because I had shared my connection over Ethernet previously. Whatever the reason, here’s how to fix it.

How to Fix the Failed to Obtain IP Address Problem in Windows Mobile Hotspot

1. Navigate to Network Connections, right click on your Internet source and select Properties. You can see how in steps 2-3 and in the “how to share over Ethernet” section above.

2. Select Local Area Connection* on Sharing tab. Make sure that “Allow other network users to connect” is toggled to on.

Internet Connection Sharing in Windows 10

How am i can share my internet to another computer or laptop

i had connected from wifi first device

second device how am i share internet

***Subject edited for clarity by the moderator.***

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To enable Internet Connection Sharing in Windows 10, please follow the steps below:

1. Press Windows key + X to open the Power User menu and select Network Connections.
2. Right-click the network adapter with an Internet connection (Ethernet or wireless network adapter), then select Properties.
3. Click Sharing.
4. Put a check mark on Allow other network users to connect through this computer’s Internet connection.
5. From the Home networking connection drop-down menu, select the Microsoft Hosted Virtual Adapter.
6. Click OK to finish.

Let us know how it goes.

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1. Put a check mark on Allow other network users to connect through this computer’s Internet connection.
2. From the Home networking connection drop-down menu, select the Microsoft Hosted Virtual Adapter.
3. Click OK to finish.

I got to step 4, then couldn’t find anything like «Home Networking» in step 5. See step 1 and 2 above I am running Win10 Pro. The crazy thing is, it was working for a while without doing this or enabling the ICS Service.

As I remember, you had to assign the second adapter a static IP address? (Win95 & XP)

Any help would be appreciated.

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For more details about enabling Internet Connection Sharing on Windows 10, we recommend checking out this page. It contains threads about the same issue, including solutions from other Windows experts.

Let us know if you have additional questions.

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For more details about enabling Internet Connection Sharing on Windows 10, we recommend checking out this page. It contains threads about the same issue, including solutions from other Windows experts.

Let us know if you have additional questions.

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To enable Internet Connection Sharing in Windows 10, please follow the steps below:

1. Press Windows key + X to open the Power User menu and select Network Connections.
2. Right-click the network adapter with an Internet connection (Ethernet or wireless network adapter), then select Properties.
3. Click Sharing.
4. Put a check mark on Allow other network users to connect through this computer’s Internet connection.
5. From the Home networking connection drop-down menu, select the Microsoft Hosted Virtual Adapter.
6. Click OK to finish.

Let us kno how it goes.

this X where i get

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Just came up on this thread to connect a another PC to a laptop and share the internet via ethernet port the Wifi and Ethernet networks must be bridged.

Internet sharing will not work if you are connected to wifi because the hotspot needs the antenna and you can’t use it at the same time.

From the network connection page right-click Ethernet adapter while holding CTRL key and then right-click WiFi adapter.

Once they are both highlighted left-click on an adapter and select Bridge Connection.

Now you can use your device internet.

Note: Laptop wifi antenna is located on the display so leave it open for higher network speed.

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To enable Internet Connection Sharing in Windows 10, please follow the steps below:

1. Press Windows key + X to open the Power User menu and select Network Connections.
2. Right-click the network adapter with an Internet connection (Ethernet or wireless network adapter), then select Properties.
3. Click Sharing.
4. Put a check mark on Allow other network users to connect through this computer’s Internet connection.
5. From the Home networking connection drop-down menu, select the Microsoft Hosted Virtual Adapter.
6. Click OK to finish.

Let us kno how it goes.

this X where i get

Also, connect a router or switch to the network interface card in your computer. Otherwise, internet connection sharing will not resume, following a reboot of your computer. Finally, my internet sharing works, after rebooting the computer which is sharing internet. When you are asked, select to have your network interface card connected network be private.

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Just came up on this thread to connect a another PC to a laptop and share the internet via ethernet port the Wifi and Ethernet networks must be bridged.

Internet sharing will not work if you are connected to wifi because the hotspot needs the antenna and you can’t use it at the same time.

From the network connection page right-click Ethernet adapter while holding CTRL key and then right-click WiFi adapter.

Once they are both highlighted left-click on an adapter and select Bridge Connection.

Now you can use your device internet.

Note: Laptop wifi antenna is located on the display so leave it open for higher network speed.

Thanks a bunch, JG(?) both those solutions are going to be useful. (FYI, I have an older but still kickin’ HP laptop. lid closed of course! It would be in the way of the external monitor. . .

Anyhoo, , much appreciated, especially since i worked for nearly 20 years an IT tech, Help desk then Server engineering I was an MCSE on Windows 2000 in early 2001. I got a congratulatory note in the mail signed Bill Gates .So I knew how to bridge devices, but didn’t think of that.

Muchas gracias, again, and you can share this reply with anyone.

Frank, aka kkicker

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4. Put a check mark on Allow other network users to connect through this computer’s Internet connection.

5. From the Home networking connection drop-down menu, select the Microsoft Hosted Virtual Adapter.

6. Click OK to finish.

I got to step 4, then couldn’t find anything like «Home Networking» in step 5. See step 1 and 2 above I am running Win10 Pro.

I had this too, eventually found I had to enable it via the command prompt. If anyone has this issue, first uncheck the sharing you enabled in the first three steps and restart your pc (otherwise this option still won’t appear).

— Run a command prompt with admin privileges (if unfamiliar with this just search for CMD on the desktop toolbar search, then right click the «Command Prompt» app it finds and run as admin)

— Type: NETSH WLAN set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid=Your_SSID key=Your_Passphrase

— (In the above replace ‘Your SSID’ with desired network name and ‘Your Passphrase’ with a security code of at least 8 letters/digits)

— Type: NETSH WLAN start hostednetwork

— Now do steps 1 to 4 as described in the OP above.

— You should now have options in the home networking drop-down menu

— For step 5, it might not be called ‘Microsoft Hosted Virtual Adapter’, mine was called ‘Local Area Connection 3’, but it was identified as an MS virtual adapter in its properties. I also had an entry just called ‘wifi’ — don’t use this one, didn’t work for me.

— If you want to disable this virtual adapter in the future use the following commands:

NETSH WLAN stop hostednetwork

NETSH WLAN set hostednetwork mode= disallow

It’s actually pretty quick and easy once you’ve done it once. You may have to reenable if you reboot your pc.

NOTE: I was setting up a pc which had an Ethernet internet access connection, then using its wifi for the new shared connection. Not all wifi cards are suitable for the above, apparently.