Win 7 virtual wifi

VirtualWiFi is an old project, and we started working on it in We are not actively working on this project since , and will not be supporting this software at Microsoft Research.

Thanks for your interest. However, the software and code will still be available for you to play around with. The user can then configure each virtual card to connect to a different wireless network. This new functionality introduced by VirtualWiFi enables many new applications, which were not possible earlier using a single WLAN card.

For example,. We have explored several other applications of VirtualWiFi. The first application is called Client Conduit , which is a very useful tool for fault diagnosis and recovery in Wireless LANs. Client Conduit is a tool that provides a thin pipe of communication for disconnected clients to exchange diagnosis information with the back end servers. The thin pipe is achieved by running VirtualWiFi on the connected clients. These clients dynamically connect to disconnected clients over an ad hoc network, and send messages from them to the back end servers.

VirtualWiFi enables this thin pipe without requiring the connected client to explicitly disconnect from the infrastructure network. It then connects each virtual wireless card on a different orthogonal channel. The third application of VirtualWiFi is called WiFiProfiler , which enables clients to cooperatively diagnose the root cause of various wireless problems.

All clients then exchange configuration information over this information plane and use this information to diagnose the root cause of various wireless failures.

The current version is a prototype implementation of VirtualWiFi, and we are in the process of making our software more robust to include more features. Your comments are very welcome. Download VirtualWiFi. This bundle contains:. The current version of VirtualWiFi does not implement some features. Please keep checking this page for updates.

The features not implemented in this release of VirtualWiFi are:. To install VirtualWiFi, open the command prompt, go to the directory where you unzipped the VirtualWiFi binaries, and type:. Note that for better viewing of this figure, you might want to watch it in its original size. The instructions on this page assume that you have correctly installed VirtualWiFi using the steps described in the VirtualWiFi install section.

If we were connected to an infrastructure network called rover, and wanted simultaneous connectivity to an ad hoc network with ssid VirtualWiFi, with non-adaptive switching, and a switch time of ms for the infrastructure network, then our sequence of commands would be as follows:. The task manager also shows the service, and the corresponding executable VirtualWiFiSvc.

The name of the service is VirtualWiFiService. VirtualWiFi worked over all the cards we tried. At this point, copy the VirtualWiFi sources.

Run build -ceZ , and this should compile the entire VirtualWiFi tree. Copy the following files required for installing VirtualWiFi to one directory:. A: Using multiple cards will cost you more money and what is worse is that your machine will consume more energy battery power.

Also, in most legacy laptops, it is cumbersome to fit multiple cards. A: The VirtualWiFi virtualization architecture exposes multiple virtual adapters, one for each wireless network to which connectivity is desired. It then uses a network hopping scheme that switches the wireless card across the desired wireless networks. The goal is to make the switching transparent to the user, such that he feels connected on all the wireless networks.

VirtualWiFi interacts with the card device driver at the lower end, and network protocols at the upper end. The buffering protocol is implemented in the kernel, while the switching logic is implemented as a user-level service. Q: Why not use a different design of VirtualWiFi, where we queue packets, and switch to the network over which the packet in the head of the queue is to be sent?

A: Switching the wireless card to another network incurs a significant overhead. Incurring this overhead for every packet will significantly degrade the performance of VirtualWiFi. Q: Why does VirtualWiFi have to switch across different networks? A: Different networks could be on physically different channels.

In such a case, nodes might not receive packets from other networks, even in promiscuous mode. Furthermore, if a node is not associated on a network, it is in media disconnected state, and will be unable to send any packets on the network.

Therefore, VirtualWiFi has to switch and associate to a network in order to send and receive packets on it. It dynamically adapts to the switching delay incurred by a wireless card, independent of the manufacturer. It also does not require manual intervention for assigning IP addresses on individual networks. Furthermore, this version of VirtualWiFi also provides users with a command-line interface to dynamically add and remove connectivity to a network.

The adaptive scheduling technique described in the paper is also implemented. A: However, some features of VirtualWiFi have only been prototyped, and not included in this release. In particular, the idea of using PSM and remote node buffering is not implemented. Users will notice hooks in the driver code to provide remote node buffering, but our user-level service currently does not support it. Finally, we have not yet included support for WEP and A: We believe that the VirtualWiFi idea can be applied to any standard.

However, we have only tested our system with IEEE A: Yes, if the underlying wireless card supports it. However, switching an A,B wireless card across the modes incurs a higher switch time, and will adversely affect the performance of VirtualWiFi. A: This number varies across cards. It also varies across networks, and across ad hoc and infrastructure networks. In our experience, switching delays vary from ms to ms across commercial cards.

Over special Native WiFi cards, this delay was a few tens of ms. Ideally, as has been pointed out by recent research in solid state circuits, and the values that have been used in our SSCH paper, this switching delay should be of the order of micro seconds.

Q: I am having problems installing VirtualWiFi. No virtual miniport as shown in the screen snapshot comes up in the Network Connections window. However, there is an unchecked VirtualWiFi attribute in the properties of my wireless card. How should I fix this problem? Q: The device name of my wireless card does not have any keywords mentioned in the prerequisites. If you do not want to use the software, you can use the command-line technique to create a Wifi hotspot.

Long Zheng came with an update which explains how it works:. Long Zeng also explains how you can enable that without using Connectify, and here is what you need to do. Launch the command prompt with administrator privilege.

Type as below, and you would see the output similar to me. The hosted network mode has been set to allow. The SSID of the hosted network has been successfully changed.

The user key passphrase of the hosted network has been successfully changed. Change the bold marked username and password for yourself. Once complete, it will create Windows 7 Hotspot. You will be able to share your active internet connection to anybody using the hotspot. The process is much simpler in Windows 10 now. Windows offers a dedicated toggle switch to create a hotspot as we do in our smartphones. You can configure hotspot names, set up a password, and more using the feature.

If you are having trouble creating Wifi Hotspot in Windows 7 or Windows 10, follow these suggestions. Look back at the device manager. You may close this window. Microsoft Virtual Miniport Adapter. The only reasons that the adapter might not show up are if the adapter did not support use as a client and an access point simultaneously. It is different from either:.

After starting the hostednetwork, I have seen at times that the other computer connecting does not always get local and Internet access. My initial IP for that access point is In Connectify only [vs.

Apart from visible changes like Taskbar superbar , Aero Peek, Aero Snap in Windows 7 there several other hidden enhancement in Windows 7 like virtual Wifi. The software handles the connections of each adapter to ensure every adapter has an opportunity to connect to their respective networks limited by time. Your Windows 7 machines can become a wifi access-point , routing the connections over Ethernet or even over a client station connection on the same wifi adapter.

Type in:. Open up the networking control panel. Source: erratasec. Thanks to Long Zheng of istartedsomething for posting this steps. The interface — means Properties dialog of your main Internet connection. As i understand it, only half of the bandwidth will be used by the virtual wifi adaper.

Is there a way to set it to use all the bandwidth of my wireless card? Thanks blogsdna! This is precisely what I hoped for. To clarify step 3, look at the second picture above, and compare to your own. Put your mouse over the info to the right of the network you are surfing. PS if you want to use cmd to stop broadcasting obv type netsh stop hostednetwork. Im having problems here. Do you know how to get the passcode? The group or resource is not in the correct state to perform the requested operation.

Hopefull i was able to connect with N97 mini is working properly. In N97mini only asking preshared key when i am searching for Wlan and asked for preshared key, its working fine when i enter the key.

Hello there.