Create WiFi Hotspot Windows Computer Free

WiFi hotspot enables sharing internet connection with other devices. If your laptop or desktop wifi driver (wireless LAN card) support hosted network, we can easily create WiFi Hotspot PC. If your home or office doesn’t have a wireless router, with this method we can share windows computer internet connection with other devices. Therefore, you don’t need to upgrade your existing wired router. For an example share your computer, internet connection with your Android, Windows or Apple smart phone.

With this hotspot we can enable secure password protected WiFi hotspot on a Windows computer. Because in an open network, anyone can connect and steal your bandwidth without your permission. In order to work this method, your laptop or desktop should have a WiFi card/adapter.

There’s two ways to make hotspot on Windows. Using a Windows command prompt (CMD) or using a third party application. In this post I’m going to use Windows CMD and Virtual router applications based methods. Apart from that it needs an administrator account.

Virtual Router application based Windows WiFi hotspot creation and configuration prompts easier than the manual command. Because command prompt need several command lines and every time when enabling network, we have to re-run the commands. Therefore fist part covers virtual router.

Table of Contents

Check Hosted Network support the WiFi Adapter.

First, it’s better check your laptop or desktop WiFi adapter support the hosted network. This process needs to run the command in CMD.

Go to start menu and type “CMD” without quotation marks.
Open Windows command prompt as an administrator. To do that, right click on the “CMD” icon and the next context menu choose “run as administrator“.
Type the following command line in the command prompt (CMD) and press the enter key to verify it supports the “hosted network”.

netsh wlan show drivers

If it shows “Hosted network supported :Yes” like in the following screenshot, it means that your computer supporting the hosted networks.

Now we can go to the next step.

Now you can either follow the once of the following steps.

Create Virtual Router Windows.

Download the virtual router in here. It’s a small exe file and install it just like the normal application. This app doesn’t have many configurations.
After the installation, its main window looks like this. It’s better change the Network name (SSD). You can add anything to this field. This name use for easily identify your Windows hotspot network.
Next type a strong password. Use this password for authenticating with your network. It should have minimum 8 characters.

Under the “Shared connection” select your computer or laptop active internet connection. In my situation, above screenshot I choose “Ethernet”.
If the WiFi disabled, enable it. Because after disabled WiFi, it also disabled its adapter.
Finally, click “start virtual router”. Now it enabled the Windows Hotspot on your computer.
You can now share your wire internet connection with your other device via Windows virtual router.

Under the peers connected, it shows the connected device information.

Create WiFi Hotspot Windows with CMD without any tool.

This method we’re going to create WiFi Hotspot Windows with command prompt. In order to follow this method, it’s better to verify your adapter support the “Hosted network”. Also make sure that every time when you are running Windows command prompt (CMD) run it as an administrator.

Type following command to create the WiFI hotspot on PC. Change it “Your Name” with any name to identify this Windows WiFi hotspot and “Your Password” type a strong password to log-in to the hotspot and hit the enter key.

netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid=Your Name key= Your Password

Now, almost all completed.
- To start the hotspot type “netsh wlan start hostednetwork” without quotes and hit the enter key, like following screenshot.
- To disable the hotspot type “netsh wlan stop hostednetwork” without quotes and press the enter key.