Transform your new laptop into a WiFi hotspot with Connectify
New networking features in Windows 7 allows a program to turn your computer into a handy WiFi hotspot.
Windows 7 was officially launched on the 22nd of October, and along with all the speed improvements came something called Microsoft Virtual WiFi, which uses software to virtualize one or more hardware WiFi adapters. A new app called Connectify makes use of this feature in the most awesome and helpful way possible (at least in my opinion.)
Basically, Connectify will turn your Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2-equipped computer into a WiFi hotspot. Other WiFi-supported devices can connect to this hotspot and make use of your internet connection, and WPA2-Personal (AES) encryption keeps your network secure. Simple, but useful.
I can see a multitude of uses for this technology. A teacher could connect his/her laptop into a wired ethernet connection near the front of the classroom, run Connectify, and allow students in the class make use of this new WiFi connection for research, for example. Most classrooms only have two or three underpowered computers anyway, so this seems like a pretty good idea.
Of course, there are some drawbacks as well. You need Windows 7 installed on a PC or laptop with a wireless card to make use of Connectify, not a huge problem when you realize that pretty much every single laptop sold today comes with Windows 7 and WiFi. Overall this looks like a promising product, a useful one at that. Do you think Connectify is a good idea?
your articles are really well-written – informative – interesting – congrats !
It is one of those nice to have features and you’re the saviour if the local hot spot goes (and your on a seperate WIFI (stick…))down but, what kind of degradation is that going to have on your systems access to the Internet and/or on the local drive. I think I would want a ton of memory to stave off a crash, which could be avoided if you can set a parameter limiting access through your WIFI.
Really, this requires a more in-depth look into the guts of this particular MS fantasy before just singing the praises of another MS attempt at doing what seems like a neat idea. Too many times MS does a half-assed job of things.
Have a great day,
Phil
sounds same as before with win xp and setup internet asks if other computers/devices connect internet throught this device, you could have game systems connect to internet through your computer/laptop wirelessly so no need for router, same idea just gave it a name and maybe gave it a tune-up
This is really a cool feature of windows 7 and I just came to know thru your this informative article.
Thanks.
Tariq.
you give us useful information it is really a very nice and useful for me.It is really important one for me.Thank you for this post it has very useful information.please keep posting like this with this useful information
[...] out of luck”. That is unless you have a rocket stick for your laptop and you do some clever network tweaking in Windows [...]
Has anyone tried this in a classroom setting? What congestion/bottlenecking do you get if a teacher has 30+ iPads connecting through their Connectify-enabled laptop?