Share Internet From Your Computer To Your Smartphone/Tablet

Here's a small trick I managed to execute the other day. Have you always wanted to use the blazing fast internet at your office for your smartphone but you face one or more of the following issues?

• Your work PC is using LAN cable
• Your office doesn't have WiFi internet
• You do not have the WiFi password / do not have the access to use the WiFi

Worry not folks, as I just might have the solution for you. The only catch is that you must be running Microsoft Windows 8.1, as this method focuses solely on this operating system, as per my personal experience.

You should be up and ready to use the internet on your smartphone or almost any device with WiFi connection in under 10 minutes at maximum. Let's go straight into the steps shall we:

First things first, you have to make sure your PC/laptop has WiFi card on it, otherwise this will not work.

1) Open up Command Prompt (or press Windows button + R) and type in "cmd" and press Enter. Please note that you must be running CP in Administrator mode, otherwise you will not be able to execute the next line of commands.
2) Type "netsh wlan show drivers", press Enter and look for this line: "Hosted network supported". If you see "Yes", you're in luck. Otherwise, sorry dude, better luck next time!
3) Type "netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid='yourssid' key='yourkey'" where ssid and key are your preferred names without the apostrophe and hit Enter.
4) Next, open up a Windows Explorer (or press Windows button + E), type "Control Panel" on the navigation bar and hit Enter. Go to Network And Internet, Network And Sharing Center, and click Change Adapter Settings on your left. You should be able to see a new connection. That's good news, ignore it. Instead, go to your current active internet connection, right click and hit Properties, go to the Sharing tab. here check both the boxes you see and make sure the connection name in the textbox is exactly the same as the new connection you saw just now. You can type it or select from the dropdown option. If you don't see it, uncheck both the boxes, press OK and close and open again.
5) Once you have set the above, go back to Command Prompt and type "netsh wlan start hostednetwork" and it should be started.
6) Voila! Your internet from your computer/laptop's cable LAN is now broadcasting and you can connect to it using any WiFi device like your smartphone or tablet!

More often than not this network should be saved into your system and the next time you reboot, you should be able to connect to this connection without much hurdle. Just type in the command from step 5 and you're good to go.

I've always wanted to do this for the longest time I can even remember. It's just astonishing how such simple and useful task as this is not a standard feature on Windows or any other PC, or am I not aware of such setting available? The closest feature that I'm aware is the Ad Hoc Internet setting in Windows, but unfortunately this setting is somehow removed or hidden from common usage in Windows 8.1, and thus the workaround method above. Anyhow, personally for me this feature should be standard and made as simple as a few clicks away, as this type of connection is very useful in many everyday cases, and most importantly, very practical.

Cheers!

Sincerely,
Mr. Syntax Geek