In hotels or camping sites you are often only allowed to connect to the internet with one device. You can then conveniently use your PC as a WiFi hotspot, so that you can also go online with other devices. And such a wireless hotspot is also useful if your PC with a wired connection can access the internet, but you have a bad WiFi connection in that part of the house. In Windows 10 you can do that in no time.
Step 1: Prepare
To turn your Windows 10 computer into a hotspot, it must have a WiFi adapter. We use this to forward the connection to your wireless devices. If you have a desktop PC without a WiFi adapter, you can purchase a USB WiFi adapter, models are available from around 20 euros.
If you have everything together in terms of hardware, go to Institutions and choose Network & Internet / Mobile Hotspot. If you don't see this last one, choose WiFi and set the toggle switch to On. It doesn't matter whether your PC is currently connected to your network via a wireless or wired way.
Step 2: Share connection
You are now in the settings window of Mobile hotspot. If Windows complains that a mobile hotspot cannot be set up or that you do not have the required network connection, it can help to switch off and on your adapter(s). Also make sure your network adapters have the latest drivers.
If your PC has both a WiFi connection and a wired Ethernet connection, you can indicate which connection you want to share from the drop-down menu in this window. Then you put the option Share my internet connection with other devices on On.
Step 3: Customize
By default, Windows gives this network its own network name and password, which you can change yourself. In the Mobile hotspot settings window, click To process and enter the desired name and password. Confirm with Save. Your wireless devices can now connect to this network.
Bee Connected devices you can check at any time how many and – based on the IP and MAC address – which devices are connected to your hotspot. You can also find this information in the Action Center, through the network tile. Up to eight devices can connect simultaneously.
By pressing the toggle button on from you can turn off your hotspot at any time.
