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Connecting win8 to an ad hoc wifi access point

There is stuff all over the internet – example – about how to make a win8 laptop act as an ad hoc wifi access point, but none of it deals with how to get a win8 laptop to connect to an existing ad hoc access point (which it doesn’t do – unlike winXP on which it usually “just works”).

The machine in question is a Lenovo Tablet 2, and the ad hoc wifi comes from a Nokia 808 phone running Joikuspot. JS works with most things, including my X230 laptop (XP), an Iphone 4 (IOS7) and an Ipad2 (IOS6). But the win8 tablet sees the network, asks for the key, and then after a long time says it can’t connect.

There is a peripheral issue here which is that if you connect a winXP machine to an ad hoc wifi network, the machine ends up radiating that SSID even after the original network is disconnected / out of range! Amazingly this seems true.

Last Edited by Peter at 11 Feb 11:15
Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Have you tried connecting it to an android phone configured for wifi tethering to see if the problem is the win 8 machine or the phone?

EGTK Oxford

I don’t have an Android phone, unfortunately.

This seems to be a known issue but the solution listed on that page (which I have spent a couple of hours trying) doesn’t seem to work.

I’ve also tried it with and without encryption, as the key interpretation can vary between some old devices.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Does the connection work if you don’t use security and leave it open? Not saying you should do that all the time…just to troubleshooting.

Does your iPhone/iPad have the option to make a wifi hotspot? If so does it work with yoru pc?

Do you really mean an ad-hoc network rather than a wifi hotspot? If so, do you really need it to be adhock?

EICL Clonbulogue, Ireland

That article, Tumbleweed, is the opposite of what I am doing. It is for “the ability to easily create ad-hoc wireless networks using your current internet connection and wireless adapter”. I am trying to connect to an existing ad hoc wifi access point.

M$ have removed the user interface for ad-hoc wifi connections from win8 (win7 was OK) and it appears that some people have done it using a series of command line commands (putting them in batch files, with desktop shortcuts, etc) but I have not succeeded.

Dublinpilot – yes, tried with and without security. Joikuspot can create only ad-hoc wifi, not the more conventional “infrastructure” wifi. I think most phones are like that. The T2 tablet works fine with the latter, and e.g. I have an E585 portable 3G/WIFI modem which creates the more conventional “infrastructure” wifi and absolutely everything works with that.

Obviously I could just forget this and not waste my life on it (I tried it last year, also without success) but this tablet lives in the cockpit nearly the whole time and I quite like to have the option of say filing a flight plan with it, in the cockpit, when in some sticky situation. The other way to connect to a phone is via bluetooth and that works great but, as is often the case with bluetooth, only on Mondays and Wednesdays, and today is a Tuesday

There is yet another solution which is to use the internal 3G radio in the T2 and that works but (don’t laugh) it is yet another PAYG SIM card which needs to be managed. The solution to that (don’t laugh) is to use one of the old Virgin PAYG SIMs on which you could set up a direct debit fully automatic topup, and yes I have two of those and they are quite priceless (especially as Virgin don’t seem to impose any time limits on how long these can be dormant) and one is in the T2, but they don’t work abroad: the moment you start roaming in Europe, Virgin (and EE, T-Mobile – they all do this crap) send an SMS to the SIM card with options to buy an “EU data bundle”. And if the device the SIM is in doesn’t do SMS (like the T2, the Ipad, and most other things like that)…. you are stuffed (you can order the data bundle by telephone, hanging on the PAYG script monkey call centre…). The solution for an Ipad is to jailbreak it and install SwirlyMessages. I have not yet found an SMS application for the T2/win8 which can receive as well as send and which actually uses the GSM radio (there are loads that use the internet, which is useless). On my winXP X230 laptop there is a Lenovo app called Access Connections which does that (you get a popup on an incoming SMS etc) but thus far I have not found this on the T2 or one that can be installed. Of course there is a solution: a contract SIM with permanently enabled roaming e.g. Vodafone, but those start at about £9/month

Currently I need the T2 because neither IOS nor Android interface to my satellite phone. I could fix that too, for about £1000 (Thuraya satsleeve plus a Galaxy S4)

Last Edited by Peter at 11 Feb 15:51
Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
6 Posts
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