Some hotels only provides an Internet connection via wired LAN and only some parts of it has wifi connection. If you urgently need a wifi in your room for your smartphone to get online, one solution is to make use of a laptop that is running on Windows 7 and turn it into an access point or wifi hotspot so that your smartphone can connect to your laptop and get the Internet connection from there. It may sound difficult but in fact it is very easy as all you need to do is visit a website, fill up the form, click a button and perform a simple Internet Connection Sharing configuration. Other than that, the computer must have Java installed. If you haven’t noticed, I did not say anything about download or installing any third party software to do this.
First you need to make sure that the following requirements are met:
1. The computer gets the Internet connection from wired LAN
2. The computer has a wireless adapter
3. The computer is running Windows 7
4. The computer has Java installed
Follow the steps below to turn your computer into an access point or hotspot.
1. Open http://www.virtualaccesspoint.com/ page from your web browser and click on the Run button when asked if you want to run the application. Type in the SSID and the password key with a minimum length of 8 characters. Click the “Turn On Soft AP” button.
2. You will be prompted by UAC to run turnonvp.bat file. Click the Yes button. A command prompt window will appear automatically running a few commands. When it is done, you can press any key to close the cmd window.
An additional Wireless Network Connection 2 using the Microsoft Virtual WiFi Miniport Adapter will be automatically created in Network Connections. The access point which you’ve just created is now visible and can be connected with the correct key. However one more step is required in order for the connected device to use the Internet connection.
3. Go to Control Panel > Network and Sharing Center > Change adapter settings. Right click on Local Area Connection and select Properties. Go to the Sharing tab and check “Allow other network users to connect through this computer’s Internet connection“. Then at the “Select a private network connection” drop down menu, select Wireless Network Connection 2 and click the OK button to close the Local Area Connection Properties window.
You can now use your smartphone or any device that has wifi connectivity to connect to the SSID which you’ve just created from your computer. To remove Wireless Network Connection 2 from Network Connections, go to Control Panel > System > Device Manager > Expand Network adapters > right click on Microsoft Virtual WiFi Miniport Adapter and select Uninstall. Creating a virtual access point can’t get any easier than this. It’s free and don’t require to download or install any third party software.