Skip to main content

wireless networking - How to set up a Windows 7 laptop as a bluetooth access point?


I have a laptop with Windows 7 and with a good bluetooth interface, and with a very bad (and overloaded) wifi device.


My laptop is connected to the network through a simple, IP-based home network cable. This is what I want to share with bluetooth to other, bluetooth capable devices (mobile phones, other laptops, etc).


Thus, what I want, that other devices could use the network of my Windows 7 laptop, using it as a bluetooth access point.


Is it somehow possible? My bluetooth is pretty good configured (I can move files, I can connect to bluetooth networks, etc), but I can't see any option to make a bluetooth network access point.


What I essentially want, is similar to the netsh start wlan hostednetwork trick in the case of wifi, but this time with bluetooth. Of course, any gui-based or command line solution, even with non-standard software would be okay.


Is it somehow possible?


What I don't want:



  • I don't want to use wifi. Answers suggesting to use wifi are unacceptable.

  • I don't want to connect my Windows 7 laptop to a bluetooth "access point", I want my Windows 7 laptop to be the "access point". Thus, questions suggesting to connect my laptop as a client device to a bluetooth network, are also not acceptable.



Answer



The reason you do not succeed with creating a Personal area network over Bluetooth is because you are using the Microsoft Bluetooth stack. Using this stack, it is not possible to use Internet Connection Sharing (ICS). This was possible in older versions of Windows, but is no longer the case.


I quote from one analysis of the problem :



The problem isn't a new one (introduced in vista and still present in windows 7) - instead, the problem already existed in windows xp!


The Microsoft Bluetooth stack does not treat a bluetooth adapter like a LAN adapter. Period.


It is, however, a matter of the vendor supplied bluetooth software (as an alternative to just using the Microsoft stack).


So when I used Windows XP (and windows 2000, by the way) I could use the bluetooth software provided by AVM (vendor of Bluefritz USB) - which gave me a PAN connection and a bluetooth connection treated just like any other network adapter! Thus enabling ICS and/or bridging my LAN an my bluetooth adapters!


Since the only available AVM drivers, however, dropped PAN support in their vista drivers and tell you to switch to Microsoft Bluetooth (on the fly) if you would like to use the PAN profile, you are left with the Microsoft stack which doesn't support ICS and/or bridging with bluetooth connections! And this has already been this way in Windows XP!


I can still use the AVM bluetooth software in windows 7, but if I want to use a PAN connection, I now MUST switch the bluetooth stack on the fly (from AVM to Microsoft)! And voilà - no more ICS in that PAN connection!


But to all other people who may have issues with Internet connection sharing over bluetooth (be it since Vista, Windows 7 or whatever):


There is hope.


Third-party software DOES enable you to have ICS via Bluetooth!!


I tested several Bluetooth stacks:



  1. Toshiba BT stack

  2. Bluesoleil by IVT

  3. Widcomm/Broadcomm


In each case, I had ICS working via Bluetooth!



Instructions on using the BlueSoleil software for establishing WiFi-over-Bluetooth can be found in the article Sharing Internet Access using Bluetooth device. I have not tested them, since I don't have the required environment, but they seem mostly logical.


You may get the BlueSoleil stack from here. This is a demo version that limits file transfers to 5 MB per file, which is fine for your purpose.


Follow the instructions as best as you can. They were obviously not written for Windows 7, and the writer was not English, but the many screenshots should help where the text is unclear. However, not having tested the details, I cannot guarantee that this will work.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

Use Google instead of Bing with Windows 10 search

I want to use Google Chrome and Google search instead of Bing when I search in Windows 10. Google Chrome is launched when I click on web, but it's Bing search. (My default search engine on Google and Edge is http://www.google.com ) I haven't found how to configure that. Someone can help me ? Answer There is no way to change the default in Cortana itself but you can redirect it in Chrome. You said that it opens the results in the Chrome browser but it used Bing search right? There's a Chrome extension now that will redirect Bing to Google, DuckDuckGo, or Yahoo , whichever you prefer. More information on that in the second link.
Post a Comment
Read more

linux - Using an index to make grep faster?

I find myself grepping the same codebase over and over. While it works great, each command takes about 10 seconds, so I am thinking about ways to make it faster. So can grep use some sort of index? I understand an index probably won't help for complicated regexps, but I use mostly very simple patters. Does an indexer exist for this case? EDIT: I know about ctags and the like, but I would like to do full-text search. Answer what about cscope , does this match your shoes? Allows searching code for: all references to a symbol global definitions functions called by a function functions calling a function text string regular expression pattern a file files including a file
Post a Comment
Read more

How do I transmit a single hexadecimal value serial data in PuTTY using an Alt code?

I am trying to sent a specific hexadecimal value across a serial COM port using PuTTY. Specifically, I want to send the hex codes 9C, B6, FC, and 8B. I have looked up the Alt codes for these and they are 156, 182, 252, and 139 respectively. However, whenever I input the Alt codes, a preceding hex value of C2 is sent before 9C, B6, and 8B so the values that are sent are C2 9C, C2 B6, and C2 8B. The value for FC is changed to C3 FC. Why are these values being placed before the hex value and why is FC being changed altogether? To me, it seems like there is a problem internally converting the Alt code to hex. Is there a way to directly input hex values without using Alt codes in PuTTY? Answer What you're seeing is just ordinary text character set conversion. As far as PuTTY is concerned, you are typing (and reading) text , not raw binary data, therefore it has to convert the text to bytes in whatever configured character set before sending it over the wire. In other words, when y
Post a Comment
Read more

networking - Windows 10, can ping other PC but cannot access shared folders! What gives?

I have a computer running Windows 7 that shares a Git repo on drive D. Let's call this PC " win7 ". This repo is the origin of a project that we push to and pull from. The network is a wireless network. One PC on this network is running on Windows 10. Let's call this PC " win10 ". Win10 can ping every other PC on the network including win7 . Win7 can ping win10 . Win7 can access all shared files on win10 . Neither of the PCs have passwords. Problem : Win10 cannot access any shared files on win7 , not from Explorer, nor from Git Bash or any other Git management system (E-Git on Eclipse or Visual Studio). So, win10 cannot pull/push. Every other PC on the network can access win7 shared files and push/pull to/from the shared Git origin. What's wrong with Windows 10? I have tried these: Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Network and Sharing Center\Advanced sharing settings\ File sharing is on, Discovery is on, Password protected sharing is off Adapte
Post a Comment
Read more