Turn your Windows 7 powered laptop into a WiFi hotspot

Nomadio offers a free software download to exploit this feature of Windows 7

If someone has followed the release of Windows 7 carefully, he might know about a buzz that made rounds sometime back. It said Microsoft might be including a virtual WiFi (VWiFi) capability feature in Windows 7 final release. The VWiFi technology would allow a single wireless network adapter to act like two i.e. two NICs in one. But when the release came out there wasn’t any official announcement about VWiFi. The interesting part to know here is that some of the code did make its way into Windows 7 and there was apparently enough of it for the folks at Nomadio to exploit into a full fledged feature. That's now become Connectify, a free application from the company that effectively turns any Windows 7 computer into a virtual WiFi hotspot -- letting you, for instance, wirelessly tether a number of devices to your laptop at location where only an Ethernet jack is available, or even tether a number of laptops together at a coffee shop that charges for WiFi.

In essence, how Virtual WiFi works is very similar to how virtualization works for operating systems which most people are familiar with – the transparent sharing of limited hardware resources to many operating systems. VWiFi, is a software layer that abstracts the wireless LAN card hardware into multiple virtual adapters. The software handles the connections of each adapter to ensure every adapter has an opportunity to connect to their respective networks limited by time. The result is an operating system none-the-wiser and acts as if you have multiple WLAN hardware adapters working independently.

Nomadio is offering a free download beta version these days. Just think how much Microsoft is going to miss the market share if Connectify makes it a hit with this product. Nomadio has exploited the absence of suitable drivers that could make the application work. I am sure people at Microsoft Research Labs must be worried about this. It’s a win-win situation for the consumers who can make their Windows 7 enabled laptops a WiFi hotspot and share videos, podcasts and, play games with friends connected to their network for free.

Obviously this feature isn’t as glamorous as the fancy new wallpapers or as practical as Aero Snap in Windows 7, but I think it represents one of the many silent revolutions in Windows that probably won’t be recognized and taken for granted for releases to come. I’d be interesting to see if Virtual WiFi catches on, and how new networking scenarios can be enabled by developers and hardware vendors.