How to create a free Wifi hotspot via a virtual router? I wrote about Connectify, the free Virtual Router for Windows 7. For your information, Connectify is a simple application that enables you to share your internet connection by via a ‘Virtual Wifi’ feature hidden in Windows 7.
Virtual Router is yet another Windows 7 Virtual Hotspot software, unlike Connectify, Virtual Router is free and open source.
Virtual Router turns any Windows 7 or Windows 2008 R2 Computer into a Wifi Hot Spot using Windows 7′s Wireless Hosted Network (Virtual Wifi) technology. The Wireless Network create/shared with Virtual Router uses WPA2 Encryption, and there is no way to turn off that encryption. This is actually a feature of the Wireless Hosted Network API’s built into Windows 7 and 2008 R2 to ensure the best security possible.
Nobody knows why this feature is not enabled in Windows 7, it could have been a huge selling point, they must have their own reason or this ‘hotspot’ feature is meant for Service Pack 1. Anyway, below is a list of similar wifi hotspot software:
Video Tutorial on Internet Sharing via Windows 7
Microsoft Windows 7 and 8 has this feature whereby you can share your 3G, 4G or LTE modem internet connection with other notebooks, smartphones or iPad tablets. This is a free feature in service pack 1. It does not provide much control like the other free software but it does the job pretty well. Watch the video we created:
Funny Wifi SSID Wireless Broadcast Names
Here are a complete list of creative wireless network names for your router, personally I like the ‘FBI Surveillance Van’ SSID name or the ‘Download Virus’ network name.
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{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
Actually they’ve documented it but didn’t promote it. It all revolves around (1) the netshell wlan commands, (2) what wireless cards are supported and have drivers that support dual mode, (3) having an new access point in addition to the client, and/or (4) how to support users better in pure ad-hoc networking (which is pretty poor unless you make them part of the same ‘home network name’ or supply chat/web/video/file/remote-access capabilities).
Anyway…. that’s why it’s not more visible….
On the other hand, the bigger question should have been how we can get the capabilities of the ORIGINAL MS Research for “VirtualWIFI” (notice as one word), that created MULTIPLE (vs. just one more) ‘virtual adapters’ that could SIMULTANEOUSLY connect to more than one access point (makes hopping a lot easier). This is similar to work I did a couple years back having multiple (3) phone lines in and figuring ways to flip back and forth between the gateways, as well as ways to bond the pipes together (normally a trick reserved for the server eh?).
I have a windows 7 pc with a Realtek RTL 8188CE Wireless LAN 802.11n
Thank you. It’s exactly what I’m looking for.
How To Share Your Windows Internet Connection Using Virtual Router?
Thanks, this is great. I never new Win 7 had this feature.
Hey there,
The first thing Connectify did on installation was to scramble with the DSL settings… damn it, and it wasn’t my computer . Luckily I unisntalled the app and the internet connection was restored
Thanks, this is a nice post. But it seems that this app doesn’t work on my laptop (DELL XPS M 1530). I really wanted to share WiFi with my Android phone so I kept trying apps until I met Virtual Hotspot, I know it’s the one. Freeware, easy to install, supports X64, Windows XP, Vista etc. Now I work really happy with Virtual Hotspot.
do you have virtual wifi hotspot for windows xp, vista and mac?
where to download Virtual Router – Wifi Hot Spot for Windows 8, Windows 7 and 2008?
You should be able to connect to that wireless network from your other devices with no problem. Virtual Router Plus
How to set up Virtual Wifi in Windows 8? any tutorials such as video?
Why don’t I use my laptop to be a wifi router?
I found a solution using net32 virtual wi-fi router … I just used the free Connectify to create virtual hotspot for my Windows 7 Starter netbook
If you want to turn your Windows 7 laptop into a Wi-Fi hotspot without configuring any… … Go to the Codeplex website and download the Virtual Router installer