How to Share Internet Connection between Windows 7 and Windows Vista Using Wireless Hotspot

Sometimes, it becomes quite difficult to share an Internet connection between two different operating systems. There are just too many wizards which you have to go through and in the worst case, you find yourself helpless and can not share an internet connection between two different operating systems (e.g Windows7 to Windows Vista, Windows Vista to Windows XP etc)

Case study: Last night I went to Soumen’s place and tried to share the internet connection via WLAN (Wireless LAN) with Soumen’s laptop being the server. I have Windows Vista while Soumen uses Windows7.

As it infers, we got caught in some anomalies and we were unable to create one shared network with Internet access for quite some time. Then we fixed it up with Connectify by converting the server into a Wi-Fi hotspot.

Steps to Share Internet connection from Windows7 to Windows Vista using a Wi-Fi Hotspot

Suppose you have two computers – one running Windows 7 and the other running on Windows vista. You would want to share an internet connection from Windows 7 computer to the computer running on Windows vista. Just follow the steps mentioned below:

1. First create an Internet connection from network and sharing center in the host computer (Windows 7 in this case). Enter the username and password provided to you from the ISP and open the browser to see whether Internet connection is running fine or not.

In the following steps, we would create a wi-fi hotspot and share the same internet connection on other computers.

2. Download Connectify and install the application in your host computer (Windows7 in this case).

3. Start Connectify and you will see the following interface:

4. To set up the Wireless hotspot, enter a name of the Wi-Fi network and choose a 10 digit numeric password. In the Internet field, choose the ISP connection which you are using to connect to the Internet. Click “Start Hotspot” when you are done.

5. Now go to Windows vista and open the “Network and sharing center”. Click “Connect to a Wireless network” and you will see the Wi-Fi hotspot started by Connectify. Click connect and you are done.

That’s it, you have just shared an internet connection between Windows7 and Windows Vista by setting up a Wireless hotspot on the server computer. I think this is the most easiest way to share an internet connection between two computers using WLAN.

Have you used any other technique to share internet connection between Windows7 and Windows vista computers? Do let us know your views and ideas in the comments section.