Jan272013

Is there a good alterantive to Connectify Pro to turn Windows 7 into a WiFi hotspot?

Ashwin Ramesh asks:

I have a USB dongle with me. I want to turn my Windows 7 to a WiFi hotspot so that I can use internet on my mobile, too.

I have tried Mary-Fi and Virtual Router Manager. Both pop up with network error. Connectify needs a Pro account if I have to use my USB’s internet and setup a hotspot. Do you know any decent alternative to these?



14 Answers - Write an Answer

0 votes
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Switchblade Rebirth

January 27, 2013
0 votes
1 votes
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ha14

January 27, 2013

The following create ad-hoc network if the wireless card or drivers do not support the virtual wifi feature

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
http://virtualrouter.codeplex.com

Windows Virtual Wifi
http://community.spiceworks.com/how_to/show/897-how-to-set-up-virtual-wifi-in-windows-7

SeventhGate enables Windows 7 and Server 2008R2 computers with wireless network card to turn into simple wireless routers. SeventhGate waits in system tray for You to start the network. If no longer needed, just turn it off and let Your machine free up all the resources.
http://seventhgate.codeplex.com/

MaryFi
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Network-Tools/Misc-Networking-Tools/MaryFi.shtml

Whisher
http://www.whisher.com/

Wifi Hotspot Creator
http://www.wifihotspotcreator.com/index.html

2 votes
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Jan Fritsch

January 27, 2013

Most of these applications use the Virtual Hosted Network feature that is built into Windows.

If you are seeing a network errors in two of these applications I would assume the problem comes from within Windows e.g. a damaged Virtual WiFi Miniport adapter.

First you should make sure that the Virtual WiFi isn’t running in the background:
Start > All Programs > Accessories
right click on Command Prompt and click on Run as administrator
enter “netsh wlan stop hostednetwork”

Then retry those applications. If you are still seeing the same error I would suggest to get to the bottom of it (trying to solve it) as it will most likely cause other “SoftAP” solutions to fail too.

0 votes
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Meena Bassem

January 27, 2013

two apps showing network error? are you sure your wireless adapter is working fine? and is it’s driver correctly installed?
i used virtual router manager before and it worked fine

0 votes
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FIDELIS

January 28, 2013

Hello, here are some options for you:

Virtual Router:
http://virtualrouter.codeplex.com/

Tonido: (not hotspot by creates a cloud storage for your devices)
http://www.tonido.com/

0 votes
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Nikhil Chandak

January 28, 2013

Did u tried wifi hotspot creator
or u can get some more alternatives to connectify here :
http://alternativeto.net/software/connectify/

0 votes
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Tech Nech

January 28, 2013

Follow these steps and you won’t need connectify or anyother softwares:

1. Go to network and sharing centre.
2. click on setup a new connection.
3. give the name and password and click on next.
4. After its done setting up its self, just click on turn on internet sharing and thats it! Enoy!

But you need to make sure that your laptop’s or pc’s WIFI is turned on!

0 votes
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Raghav Gupta

January 29, 2013

Why go for something like this when you do not really need it.
You can do it without any software all from itself.

0 votes
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Adam Basha

January 29, 2013

I think its ur Antivirus program which is blocking. Uninstall antivirus and try if you can succeed. If you, then the problem is with antivirus. Which one do u use ?

0 votes
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Adam Basha

January 29, 2013

I think most probably you are using Net Protector

0 votes
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Aleksandra Huey

February 5, 2013

No need for any software, Windows 7 has integrated option to be used as WiFi hotspot, just share your USB internet : http://mobileoffice.about.com/od/internet-sharing-tethering/ht/how-to-share-internet-connection-on-windows7.htm

0 votes
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Nevzat Akkaya

February 13, 2013

I hada a similar wish and I’ve tried many of the alternatives too, unfortunately I still can’t do this properly. I hope something new comes out among these answers so I can share my PC’s internet with my phone too. My only solution was buying a Reverse USB Tether app on my Android. It partially solved mine.

0 votes
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Jonas Eikeland

February 28, 2013

You can actually create a wifi hotspot from the Command prompt.
Just follow these simple steps, and you should have it ready to run.

1. Open Command prompt as administrator.
2.type in: netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow SSID=Test key=1234
(You can name your SSID and key to whatever you want it to be)
3. Type: netsh wlan start hostednetwork
(To stop it type: netsh wlan stop hostednetwork)

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