Enable Wifi Hotspot on Laptop for Free: NO ROUTER NEEDED

Do you own a wifi-enabled laptop? Then most probably your laptop has a wifi-hotspot. Usually when you avail a broadband service for your windows they will recommend you to buy a wifi router along with that.

What is a wifi router?

Well, a wifi router is an external wifi hotspot device that will create a wifi hotspot from your existing broadband connection where you can connect your smartphones. But imagine these situations:

  1. You have went to your friend’s house who does not own a wifi router and want to connect your mobile to your friend’s broadband network.
  2. Your wifi router got damaged or not working for any reason, and it will take time to reinstate it back.
  3. You want to increase the range of your wifi router.
  4. You don’t want to buy a wifi router to save money.
  5. Your house is big so you need more than one wifi router.

and much more…

In all of the above mentioned cases, a laptop inbuilt wifi router is very essential. Here we will discuss how to start wifi hotspot on your windows. Note that the entire process is free of cost. Let’s begin…

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Step 1: Prerequisites:

Before going further, let’s test whether your laptop supports wifi hotspot or not.

  • Right click on start menu and click on Command Prompt (Admin).
  • Grant Administrative Permissions if asked.
  • On Command Prompt Window, type: netsh wlan show drivers

    Enable Wifi Hotspot on Laptop for Free: NO ROUTER NEEDED

    Refer to the image above: Click to enlarge it.

  • Check the response: If it says, Hosted Network Supported: Yes, then you are good to go. Your laptop supports wifi hotspot.
  • Well, if it says No, then sorry probably your laptop does not have a wifi or wifi hotspot is not supported in your laptop.

Step 2: Enable Hosted Network:

  • Go to Device Manager by clicking Windows Button + R, and typing this command: devmgmt.msc
  • Click View, then click Show Hidden Devices.
  • Check the Network Adapters section and find Microsoft Hosted Network Virtual Adapter.
    Enable Wifi Hotspot on Laptop for Free: NO ROUTER NEEDED
  • Right Click and click on Enable. If it is enabled already then Ignore this step.

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Step 3: Start Wifi Hotspot:

There are two methods for this:

  1. The Native Command Prompt Method
  2. The External Software Method

I will discuss both of them here, but feature-wise, the external software method is more advantageous as well as beneficial. Also, in many windows laptops, the native method does not work, I don’t know why. Anyways, I am starting with the native method at first.

Native Method: Enable Wifi Hotspot using Command Prompt:

  • Again Open Command Prompt using Administrator Privileges.
  • Type the following code: netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid=”NAME” key=”PASSWORD”
  • Replace NAME with your wifi network name and PASSWORD with your desired wifi password. Note: Keep the quotations as it is in the code. Don’t remove the quotes.
  • Press Enter.
  • Now search for wireless networks using your mobile. You can find the newly created network. Now connect with your preset password.

That’s all. If for any reason the above method does not work, you are free to try the external software method.

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External Software Method: Start Wifi Hotspot using Hotspoter:

This method requires you to download a software called Hotspoter. Hotspoter is a ready-made app to start wifi hotspot without going to the Command Prompt stuff. However, note that Hotspoter software won’t work if your laptop does not support hosted network, as tested in step 1. So let’s start.

  • Download Hotspoter Software: Hotspoter.exe – 2.1 MB
  • Install and Open Hotspoter. It has a super easy interface which is very easy to understand.
  • Make sure you have stable internet connection. You will see something like this:
    Enable Wifi Hotspot on Laptop for Free: NO ROUTER NEEDED
  • Choose a Network Name (SSID) and Password for your hotspot and select the internet connection you are connected on, in case of broadband it will most probably be your Ethernet connection.
  • Finally click Start Hotspot.
  • Voila, now search for available wifi networks using your mobile and connect to the newly created wifi network and start surfing.
  • From the Users Tab, you can see which devices are connected.

Other Advantages of Hotspoter:

It can act as a wifi repeater too which you can use to increase the range of your existing wifi router. Simply connect to an existing wifi network and it will ask you to act as repeater.

What is Wifi Repeater?

A wifi repeater is used to increase the range of an existing wifi network. It simply connects to your existing wifi and starts a hotspot right at that point. So, using that you can create a virtual hotspot in any point of your house. So if your house is a big one, start it on a weak wifi zone of your house to generate a fresh wifi hotspot at that point making the network powerful at that point again. However, a wifi repeater does not increase the internet speed of your network in any way, it just creates virtual hotspots for an existing wifi network at any point.

Note: You need to be connected to a wifi network to enable the wifi repeater. It won’t show up for ethernet connected broadband networks.

That’s all about enabling wifi hotspot on your laptop. If you want to just share your laptop broadband internet with just 1 of your mobile then you can also do that by USB Cables. This method is known as Reverse Tethering Method. Usually we tether internet from mobile to laptop where our phone acts as a Note that this method is limited to some rooted devices and some custom roms only, and it may or may not work for your device.

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Reverse Tethering Method: Share Laptop Internet:

This Method Requires a rooted android device only. And it is not yet ready for Android Lollipop yet. Also for Android 4.3 and 4.4 it needs a special procedure to be carried out. So it is not recommended in general, it just for techy geeks who wants to experiment.

The entire process has been written by a senior xda developer capslock66, kindly have a look at this post from XDA Developer’s Forum for the step by step guide. Download links are available with the post itself. Read it thoroughly. You will get it.

I am pretty sure this post has helped you out from one of the biggest troubles of laptop internet sharing. Now it’s your turn to try it out and tell me how was your experience by leaving a comment below. I will be waiting for your valuable comments. Just try it out now.

Thanks for reading my post on How to enable wifi hotspot on your windows laptop for free. If you have liked it do share the post with your friends. It really helps us a lot to get more visitors like you. Each share counts. 🙂

I will be back with some more interesting content very soon. Till then, have a look at our other posts too. See you soon.

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Nirmal Sarkar
Nirmal Sarkar

Nirmal Sarkar is a Biotechnologist from the city of Joy, Kolkata. He is the founder of this blog and covers a wide range of topics from Gadgets to Software to Latest Offers. You can get in touch with him via nirmal@hitricks.com

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