Vro: Windows 7 is used as the router!

When surfing the internet, we will inevitably encounter some network problems. At this time, we need to check the network connection status and find the root cause of the problem.

In Windows XP, you will open the "Network Connection" window from the Start Menu or Control Panel to check network problems. However, it may be difficult for a new Windows 7 user to find this window, you cannot find "network connection" in the control panel. At this time, you should think of the "Network and sharing center" introduced last time, because the general network configuration is concentrated here. Can you find any clue here?

Click the "Change adapter Settings" task in the upper-left corner. The "network connection" window is originally hidden here, at this time, we can view the NIC settings and status in the computer like in XP:

However, some may find that one of these NICs is the Microsoft Virtual WiFi Miniport Adapter. How can I add such a thing to my computer for no reason? Is another hidden function of Windows 7 discovered?

Yes, this is indeed a new feature hidden in Windows 7-"virtual Wifi". I am sorry to sell it to you. Simply put, Windows 7 can Virtualize a wireless network card based on the existing wireless network card, supporting network sharing, and turning our computer into a wireless router! It seems that "virtual" is everywhere today.

Some people may know that before that, they could also establish a temporary network to share the Internet with other Wifi devices. What new advantages does the virtual Wifi network card have?

The traditional temporary Wireless Network (Ad Hoc) is a point-to-point network, similar to the "dual-host interconnection" in a wired network. Although it can also achieve Internet sharing, it is mainly used for temporary interconnection between two devices, in addition, some devices (such as Android devices) do not support connection to temporary wireless networks. Another serious problem is that a wireless network card can only be connected to one wireless network. Therefore, if you connect to the Internet through a wireless network card, you cannot use the wireless network card to create a temporary network and share the Internet.

In Windows 7, the virtual Wifi function can Virtualize a network card based on a real wireless network card to implement the AP function of the wireless router and solve all the problems of the temporary network.

This attractive feature is now ready to teach you:

1. Run Command Prompt as Administrator

Because the following steps must be run under the Administrator permission, we can find the "command prompt" from the Start menu, or directly Type cmd to quickly search, right-click it, select "Run as administrator" and click "yes" in the pop-up user control window ". Another way is to press Ctrl and Shift to directly click the shortcut, Which is simpler.

2. Enable and set the "virtual Wi-Fi network card" Mode

Run the following command to enable the virtual wireless network card (equivalent to enabling the router ):

netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid=”Win7 AP WOW!” key=wifimima

This command has three parameters:

Mode: whether to enable the virtual Wi-Fi network card. If it is set to disallow, the virtual network card will disappear.

Ssid: Specifies the name of the wireless network, preferably in English.

Key: the password of the wireless network. This password is used to encrypt WPA2 securely on the wireless network, which can prevent network attacks.

The preceding three parameters can be used independently. For example, you can disable a virtual Wi-Fi network card by using mode = disallow only.

3. Enable "Internet Connection Sharing (ICS )"

To share the connected Internet with other computers or devices, we need to enable the "Internet Connection Sharing" function. Open the "Network Connection" window, right-click the network connection that has been connected to the Internet, select "properties", switch to the "share" tab, and select the check boxes, and select the network connection that allows them to share the Internet here is our virtual Wifi network card:

After confirmation, the "shared" icon appears next to the shared Nic icon, indicating that "Internet Connection Sharing" has been activated for the virtual wireless NIC:

4. Enable Wireless Network

Continue to run the following command at the command prompt:

netsh wlan start hostednetwork

You can enable the previously set Wireless Network (equivalent to enabling the wireless function of the router. Similarly, change start to stop to disable the wireless network ).

We can see that the virtual wireless network card has enabled the specified wireless network, its IP address and other attributes are allocated by the "Internet Connection Sharing" service, so it is special:

Everything is ready. At last, you only need to connect to the wireless network on the computer or mobile phone that needs to be connected to the Internet, you can directly access the Internet:

One more thing is that "virtual Wifi network card" requires the driver of the real network card to be designed and developed specifically for Windows 7. Fortunately, as long as the "Windows 7 logo authentication" wireless network card driver supports this mode, we can directly find whether the logo is included when purchasing a wireless network card. If no virtual wireless network adapter is displayed in the network connection after running the mode = allow command, it means that the real network adapter does not support this function. You can upgrade the NIC driver to the latest Windows 7 version.

In addition to using commands to set the virtual WIFI function, Microsoft also exposed its programming interface, providing the possibility for developing graphical setting programs, for example, the free small software Connectify can intuitively set up the virtual Wifi function, students can download and use it on their official website: www. connectify. me

In short, the introduction of this function is very suitable for families or student dormitories, as long as the shared computer does not sleep, do not shut down, it can provide network sharing like a router. Using Windows 7 saves the cost of the purchased wireless router. Is it very cost-effective?