Windows 7: Use Your Laptop as a Wi-Fi Hotspot

You can share your laptop's Internet connection with other WiFi devices (for example, an iPad or any other Wi-Fi enabled devices) using a Windows feature called "Virtual WiFi".

Note: The drivers for the wireless adapter need to support this functionality, so you may need to update the driver.

• From the Start screen, type CMD in the in the search field and press Ctrl+Shift+Enter (starts the Administrator command prompt).
• At the command prompt window, type: netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid=MyNet key=MyPassword (replace MyNet with the name for your wireless network and MyPassword with a password that will need to be entered for devices to connect to it). Press the Enter key.
• Then type netsh wlan start hostednetwork. Press the Enter key.
• From the Start screen, type Network and Sharing Center, click the Settings button.  Then click on the Network and Sharing Center icon.
• In the left pane, click the Change Adapter Settings link.
• Right-click the network adapter you use for your Internet connection and select Properties, 
• Click the Sharing tab, check Allow other network users to connect through this computer's Internet connection... check box.
• Press the OK button when done

When you restart your computer, this functionality will automatically be disabled.  To turn it back on, from the administrator command prompt, type netsh wlan start hostednetwork.  You can create a shortcut for this command so you don't have to type it.

Notes: To delete the virtual WiFi connection, from the Run... command (Winkey + R), type CMD in the in the search field and press Ctrl+Shift+Enter (starts the Administrator command prompt). At the command prompt, type "netsh wlan stop hostednetwork", and press the Enter key.  Then type "netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=disallow", and press the Enter key again.