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I just started using Microsoft Virtual WiFi or hostednetwork from Command Prompt to share my internet connection through my WiFi adapter and it's good so far! The only issue I face however is that I can't find a way to display the assigned IP addresses to the clients connected to the Virtual WiFi, is this possible? If not, then how can I get the range of IPs that the client should have been assigned to when the client connected to the Virtual WiFi?

I can see the clients on "My Network Places" however, from the client machine, when I see the assigned IP and try to ping it from the machine hosting the Virtual WiFi I get no response. So how can I get the client IP address in order to ping/connect to the client?

Example: On my client's machine when I do ipconfig it shows an empty value for Default Gateway and the IP address is 192.168.137.1. However when I go to the machine which hosts the Virtual WiFi and ping that IP, I get no response

Edit: typing netsh wlan show hostednetwork shows the current status of the Virtual WiFi, it also shows the MAC addresses of the connected clients, however it doesn't show the IPs unfortunately. Example:

> netsh wlan show hostednetwork
Hosted network settings
-----------------------
    Mode                   : Allowed
    SSID name              : "Giovanni-PC"
    Max number of clients  : 100
    Authentication         : WPA2-Personal
    Cipher                 : CCMP

Hosted network status
---------------------
    Status                 : Started
    BSSID                  : 56:5a:04:6f:88:09
    Radio type             : 802.11n
    Channel                : 11
    Number of clients      : 1
        00:19:32:45:71:da        Authenticated <-- (a client)

Edit 2: On the client's machine, there's no value for Default Gateway. I'm also not sharing an internet connection, I just want to connect to the client's machine through FTP to copy data, could this be the problem?

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  • Be aware that windows firewall, at least on windows 7 blocks incoming ping, so not being able to ping it doesn't necessarily mean you can't connect to it.
    – user2313067
    Commented Aug 28, 2014 at 16:40
  • @user2313067 I was aware of that, I even turned off the firewalls but still didn't work; I didn't block ICMP requests, and ICMP requests aren't blocked by default. So there were no connection at all, making Windows XP as the host machine however fixed the issue, not really sure what caused this.
    – Giovanni Mounir
    Commented Aug 29, 2014 at 8:29

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
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I've also had this problem, and I solved it like this:

  • create a WiFi hotspot:

    netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid=ProvaMi key=pippo123

    netsh wlan start hostednetwork

  • Assign the hotspot a name in the "Network and sharing center > change adapter settings" (in my case: "TestWIFI")

  • Set a static IP address for the WiFi network:

    netsh interface ip set address "TestWIFI" static 192.168.159.1 255.255.255.0 196.168.159.1

Now, using a program that provides a DHCP server on windows (http://www.dhcpserver.de/cms/), I configured the server to generate the

[SETTINGS]
IPPOOL_1=192.168.159.2-254
IPBIND_1=192.168.159.1
AssociateBindsToPools=1

Now, the DHCP server will update its own settings file (dhcpsrv.ini) with the IP address and the DNS name of any connected client.

Hope this helps.

Note: all the above (IP addresses, passwords, etc.) are examples for my test configuration. Of course you'd need to use your own settings.

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  • 3
    "...of course you'd need to use your own settings." --- Ok, I'm a newbie here, but what should my own settings be? Based on what? How do I choose an IP, a gateway? What are the rules for the "hosted network" and the client's ip/gateway/DNS?
    – Daniel Möller
    Commented Jul 6, 2016 at 21:51
  • Actually any number can be use since this is just local usage. But mostly in common we always seen ip start with 192.168.XXX.XXX in anywhere regarding to IP address especially TP-LINK / DLink home router. So we could follow that number. Now if you have done started up your hostednetwork, you could type "ipconfig" in command promp windows. And you should saw your ip address is already here and just use that ip. follow Nova's answer accordingly with your own ip address. About subnet mask, please use 255.255.255.0.
    – elliotching
    Commented Mar 10, 2019 at 8:02
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arp -a will dump out your arp (or Address Resolution Protocol) tables - this is the mapping of ip addresses to mac address

then look for all dynamic addresses under the interface you are using - the output looks something like this/ 

Interface: 192.168.0.106 --- 0xe
  Internet Address      Physical Address      Type
  192.168.0.1           c4-a8-1d-84-f3-59     dynamic
  192.168.0.101         00-1e-8f-76-95-5e     dynamic
  192.168.0.105         00-10-75-57-7a-e8     dynamic
  192.168.0.126         00-1c-25-20-1a-a0     dynamic
  192.168.0.255         ff-ff-ff-ff-ff-ff     static
  224.0.0.22            01-00-5e-00-00-16     static
  224.0.0.251           01-00-5e-00-00-fb     static
  224.0.0.252           01-00-5e-00-00-fc     static
  224.0.0.253           01-00-5e-00-00-fd     static
  239.2.0.252           01-00-5e-02-00-fc     static
  239.192.152.143       01-00-5e-40-98-8f     static
  239.255.255.250       01-00-5e-7f-ff-fa     static
  255.255.255.255       ff-ff-ff-ff-ff-ff     static
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  • This answer might be correct but it needs some fleshing out. E.g. Why does that work? What does it do. Tell that arp -a shows the arp cache, etc etc
    – Hennes
    Commented Feb 23, 2016 at 12:48
  • In conjunction with netsh wlan show hostednetwork, this gives me the IPs of clients which is what I came here looking for
    – katriel
    Commented Mar 31, 2016 at 8:42
  • in windows 10 you can get the list for single interface: arp -a -N 192.168.137.1
    – Alec Istomin
    Commented Nov 26, 2017 at 7:05
0

You need to use ipconfig /all and browse to Wireless LAN Adapter. Look for IPv4 Address.

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  • On which device? I looked on the client and did so, it showed: DHCP Enabled: No, IPv4 Address: 192.168.137.1. However trying to ping that IP address from the host machine doesn't work. Any thoughts?
    – Giovanni Mounir
    Commented Aug 28, 2014 at 14:08
  • Run this command on the host machine.
    – CrumpledMemories
    Commented Aug 28, 2014 at 14:09
  • IP Address on host machine is: 192.168.173.1. Host enabled: Yes. Autoconfiguration Enabled: Yes.
    – Giovanni Mounir
    Commented Aug 28, 2014 at 14:10
  • You should see something like this: i.imgur.com/SdAAIiW.png
    – CrumpledMemories
    Commented Aug 28, 2014 at 14:13
  • 1
    Just worked on my Windows XP! I can ping the machine's IP now! Although on Windows 7 this wasn't possible, I think it was a problem with the client machine anyways. This time I used Windows XP to host the adhoc network however; Windows 7 as a host machine caused the same issue. Thank you for all your help!
    – Giovanni Mounir
    Commented Aug 28, 2014 at 15:05
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The solution for me was to just make sure Internet Connection Sharing was turned on for the source connection.

  • In Windows settings view the adapters under Network Connections.

  • Go to the properties of the source connection.

  • Go to the sharing tab.

  • Turn on "Allow other network users to connect..."

  • and select the hosted network that you created for the Home networking connection.

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