How to make your laptop act as a router

Posted on June 24, 2008 at 5:38 am

Assuming your laptop has built-in wireless inside though. Even if it doesn’t, you can buy a cheap wireless USB.

Lets assume that you have. Why not use your laptop to redirect your ADSL modems internet to perhaps your grandma, who can’t move downstairs, and can only use her laptop?

It would makes sense. A wireless USB is far, far cheaper in comparison to a typical wireless router. A normal wireless USB is about 1/5 of the price of a regular router.

So, instead of wasting all your money, I’ve found out a way to save your money and make your laptop/computer into a router, whilst still being able to use that computer as a normal computer, with all the functions is previously had.

So, here’s how you use a computer or a laptop to act like a router.

First things first, set up the computer that’s connected to the modem to be the HOST. All this means is that this is the computer that will be used to share the internet, not the computer that doesn’t have internet currently. To do this, go:

Start > Control Panel > Network Connections.

This should show all the connections you are or have been connected to.

Now do the following:

Step One: Right-Click the connection you are currently using to access the internet. Click Properties. Go to the Advanced tab and check “Allow other network users to connect through this computer’s Internet connection”.

Step Two: Click the drop down menu and select “Wireless Network Connection“. Click OK.

Step Three: Go back to Network Connections, right click Wireless Network Connection and select Properties. Click on the Wireless Networks tab.

Step Four: Click on the Advanced button, and select Computer-To-Computer (Ad-Hoc) Networks Only. Also, make sure that Automatically Connect To Non-Preferred Networks is unchecked. Close box.

Step Five: Click on the Add button, enter all the information required. Make sure Network Encryption is disabled.

Step 6: Right click the Wireless Connections icon in the bottom-right toolbar, and connect to the Wireless Connection you just created.

You’ve now successfully made your computer/laptop into a HOST computer, and it will now act as a router for other computers/laptops to connect to.

You can now use any computer around the house to connect wirelessly to the internet, without a router!

It’s quite a handy little tip, and not one most people generally find out by themselves. It’s not recommended if you need to connect a lot of people to the internet, as it generally slows down, and provides no security, unlike most routers. However, if it’s simply for another laptop or two, it should be absolutely fine.

Another little point is that you may encounter a few difficulties if you want to set up a static IP, so I also would say steer clear if that is one of your needs (If you want to do things like host Warcraft III games or use Torrents at fast speeds).

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8 Responses to “How to make your laptop act as a router”

COOL said on : August 10th, 2008 at 4:39 pm

Thanks.

I created a wireless connection as instructed. I can view the connection by another computer, but it can not be connected.

In step 6, do the host need to connect to the connection first?

Frank Guros said on : August 27th, 2008 at 1:01 pm

In Step 2 I dn not know where to clck for the drop down menu. My OS is XP, host, and the receiving computer is Vista. Is the setting procedure different. I’m not sure about the Vista computer. I cannot connect although it receives a strong signal from the host.Any ideas?

Frank Guros

Drix said on : September 6th, 2008 at 1:01 am

Hi man, what about on Vista, I tryed to do on Vista but it’s not the same, can you send me an email with the settings or if you write an article ? please

Justin said on : September 23rd, 2008 at 6:48 pm

Is there a way to do this with Vista? it says it is built in and I can create the network but the other computer cannot connect to the internet. Please e-mail me if you have any suggestions.

Jeff said on : September 29th, 2008 at 7:54 pm

Great advice. Thank you very much for these clear instructions!

M said on : October 5th, 2008 at 1:34 am

Great work….tnx….

ryan said on : October 7th, 2008 at 7:46 am

hey great tip i have it all working fine sept i noticed how u said do not add a encryption such as wep i went ahead and enabled wep anyway and it didnt work then i dissabled it and it worked and i thort wtf why have that option if it wont work anyway since their is no encryption could you recomend any network monitors to see what clients are connected to my computer because i atleast need to be able to see who is on my computer and how much data their transfering through