Adhoc wireless networks are really easy to create but sometimes they can simply become a headache, the reason might be that something which could be undetectable went wrong. Something similar happened to me while trying to wirelessly connect my iPhone to my laptop’s wifi using an adhoc network on Windows 7.

I have done it several times before in Windows Vista without any issues but surprisingly I encountered some problems after switching to Windows 7. My iPhone was able to detect and connect to the network which I created, but won’t show any network activity.

I googled the problem and came across this very useful tutorial on the blog of one of my friends which addressed this issue in a bit different way. It actually deals with how to create and configure Microsoft Virtual WiFi adapter, but once you’re through with it, it means that now you can easily create a wireless adhoc network to be used with your WLAN-enabled device. Here’s how it works:

1. Open a command-prompt with administrator privileges.

Click on Start menu, All Programs, Accessories, right-click on Command Prompt, select “Run as administrator”). Type in:

2. Configure the “hosted” interface:

netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid=Test key=password

This example creates an access-point with an SSID of “Test”,

3. Configure Internet Connection Sharing (ICS)

Open up the networking control panel. Select the interface that currently has Internet connection (like your Ethernet or normal wifi), enable “Sharing”, and then select the special “hosted” interface.

4. Start it

netsh wlan start hostednetwork

And you’re done. Your Network is now ready to be used.

If you are still encountering any problem while doing this, feel free to drop us a comment below.