I realized Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2 have added a new feature of creating a virtual AP out from the physical wireless adapter.
Reference: About the wireless hosted network
A soft AP can be created without disrupting the current wireless connection between the user’s card and the AP. All WPA2 PSK capable clients can connect to this soft AP.
Laptop with the Windows 7 logo sticker should have wireless adapter that support hosted network.
To verify if the wireless adapter supports hosted network:
Run cmd under administrator’s mode then issue this command netsh wlan show drivers.
Create wireless hosted network (soft ap / virtual ap) profile
1. Run cmd in administrator mode.
2. netsh wlan set hostednetwork ssid=win7ap key=test1234 mode=allow.
3. netsh wlan start hostednetwork.
Unfortunately this did not work for my wifi card…This error could be an indication that my wifi card does not support wireless hosted network. Driver update might be necessary.
Although I could not get the wireless hosted network started through netsh I could start from control panel > networking and sharing > network connection > Microsoft Virtual Miniport adaptor.
cyruslab 