Turn Your Windows 10 Computer Into a Wi-Fi Hotspot

Windows: If you have a Windows computer with a wired internet connection, you may want to share that with other devices. You can do this with a little command line trickery to turn your desktop into a Wi-Fi hotspot.

While technically this has been possible for a while, the process has changed over the years. You can check out the new steps for Windows 10 in the video above from tech blog Techniqued, or follow the steps here:

1. Press Win+X to open the power user settings menu and choose “Command Prompt (Admin)“.
2. Enter the following command, replacing the values for SSID and key with the network name and password you want: netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid=AdHoc key=password
3. Run the following command to start the network: netsh wlan start hostednetwork
4. Search in the Start menu for “View network connections.”
5. Right-click your main ethernet connection and choose “Properties.”
6. Under the “Sharing” tab, click the box labeled “Allow other network users to connect through this computer’s internet connection.”
7. In the drop down below the above box, choose the network connection that currently has internet access. Click OK.

At this point, you’ll have a brand new Wi-Fi network that’s connected to your home internet. Keep in mind that this will only work as long as the Windows machine that’s running the network is active. This also isn’t a total replacement for a proper router, but it can get you by in a pinch.