Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7265 Hosted network support for Windows 10

[DAnde14]

Hi,

I have trying to get the Hosted Network Support build into Windows 8.1 and 10 to work with my Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7265 card.

The output of the "netsh wlan show drivers" command is:

Interface name: Wi-Fi

Driver : Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless-AC 7265

Vendor : Intel Corporation

Provider : Intel

Date : 09-08-2015

Version : 18.12.2.2

INF file : C:\WINDOWS\INF\oem110.inf

Files : 3 total

C:\WINDOWS\system32\DRIVERS\Netwtw02.sys

C:\WINDOWS\system32\DRIVERS\Netwfw02.dat

C:\WINDOWS\system32\DRIVERS\vwifibus.sys

Type : Native Wi-Fi Driver

Radio types supported : 802.11b 802.11g 802.11n 802.11a 802.11ac

FIPS 140-2 mode supported : Yes

802.11w Management Frame Protection supported : Yes

Hosted network supported : No

Authentication and cipher supported in infrastructure mode:

Open None

Open WEP-40bit

Open WEP-104bit

Open WEP

WPA-Enterprise TKIP

WPA-Enterprise CCMP

WPA-Personal TKIP

WPA-Personal CCMP

WPA2-Enterprise TKIP

WPA2-Enterprise CCMP

WPA2-Personal TKIP

WPA2-Personal CCMP

Open Vendor defined

Vendor defined Vendor defined

IHV service present : Yes

IHV adapter OUI : [00 80 86], type: [00]

IHV extensibility DLL path: C:\WINDOWS\System32\IWMSSvc.dll

IHV UI extensibility ClSID: {1bf6cb2d-2ae0-4879-a7aa-a75834fbd0e3}

IHV diagnostics CLSID : {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}

Wireless Display Supported: Yes (Graphics Driver: Yes, Wi-Fi Driver: Yes)

Why is the Hosted network support not working on this adapter. I have an AC 7260 adapter where it does work.Microsoft states this is a driver limitation. Will Intel fix this soon ?

[KMoll]

I have the same issue with the driver for the AC 7265. Uninstalled and reinstalled the latest driver with no remedy. Intel support sent a link to Microsoft's instruction for NDIS functions, which does not help. Nothing suggested resolves not being able to start the wlan hostednetwork adapter. Intel, please resolve this issue.

[DAnde14]

I have a slightly older laptop with an Intel AC-7260 installed. With the 18.12.2.2 device driver I do get the:

Hosted Network Support = Yes

Which kinds of confirms me, that is a problem in the Intel device driver for the AC-7265, which I hope Intel will fix ASAP.

[KMoll]

Here is Intel's reply:

Hope you are having a wonderful day!

We understand your point and what you are trying to achieve but this is not related to driver capabilities, our AC 7265 is not designed to be capable to work as a hotspot, so no matter which driver version you have installed, our wireless adapter will be limited by hardware to work as hotspot.

WiFi Direct is not a hotspot, it is intended to share and connect up to 8 ends in a private network, the purpose of it is different than the hotspot.

Our intel PROSet is does not have hotspot feature due the fact that this feature is not supported by the device's hardware.

Then, we know that you can find some third party software that converts your laptop into a hotspot, but how they works and the problems it may occur with their usage will be out of our scope.

About Windows 10, it is a very new software that may need some improvement as other versions had needed in the past, but no matter if you are in Windows 7, 8 or 8.1, the hotspot feature will be out of scope.

If you have any more questions or comments please let us know by replying this email and we will be more than glad to help you.

Best regards,

Brian Lewis

Intel Customer Support

[DAnde14]

Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 allows you to turn Wifi direct into a hotspot feature, which is kind of nice, if you are in one of those hotels and the end of the coridor, where the wifi is weak, but cables are present in the room. Now I have to bring my Dovado Tiny instead og using my laptop.

I read what Intel states - but I don't understand how a feature can be present in a sister product (AC-7260) and not in the 7265. From what I thought the main difference between those products are the use of 80Mhz.

Anyway - it's not the end of the world, but only slightly disappointing that this feature is not supported.

[zshi4]

Any solution now? I cannot stand the blue screen any more.

[JSche10]

With WIN 10, Lenovo X1 Carbon hosted WLAN works with driver version 18.11.0.8 on AC 7265

with later driver versions the support is gone. And I guess this is done intentionally and it would be nice and customer friendly from intel to reactivate the function in newer driver versions

C:\WINDOWS\system32>netsh wlan show driver

Schnittstellenname: WiFi

Treiber : Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless-AC 7265

Hersteller : Intel Corporation

Anbieter : Intel

Datum : 22.06.2015

Version : 18.11.0.8

INF-Datei : C:\WINDOWS\INF\oem137.inf

Dateien : 3 insgesamt

C:\WINDOWS\system32\DRIVERS\Netwbw02.sys

C:\WINDOWS\system32\DRIVERS\Netwfw02.dat

C:\WINDOWS\system32\DRIVERS\vwifibus.sys

Typ : Wi-Fi-Treiber (Ursprungsversion)

Unterstützte Funktypen : 802.11b 802.11g 802.11n 802.11a 802.11ac

FIPS 140-2-Modus wird unterstützt: Ja

802.11w Management Frame Protection wird unterstützt: Ja

Unterstützte gehostete Netzwerke : Ja

[MGuer6]

is completely right. I have an HP Spectre x360 with intel AC 7265. I tried to setup my hosted network but I did not have the Microsoft Hosted Network Virtual Adapter. Naturally, the guy from HP Chat Support told me to update to the latest driver, which did not solve the issue.

Upon seeing your post I downloaded version 18.11.0.8 from HP, removed the driver files from System32/Drivers, restarted, and installed the old drivers using the installation EXE inside the service pack I got from HP.

I finally had the Hosted Network Virtual Adapter, but it was 'not connected' to my computer. I uninstalled and reinstalled the 7265 with driver 18.12.0.3 and it worked.

**TL;DR If you want to host networks with Intel Wireless-AC 7265, you'll need to rollback your driver

I think it is completely absurd that Intel would remove functionality with an update. It is even more absurd that they would deny the hardware capabilities of the adapter like they did to @kat_ya. It seems as if the 7265 is completely capable of working as a hotspot.

Here is proof of it working.

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.10586]

(c) 2015 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Users\Mau>netsh wlan show driver

Interface name: Wi-Fi

Driver : Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless-AC 7265

Vendor : Intel Corporation

Provider : Intel

Date : 7/16/2015

Version : 18.12.0.3

INF file : C:\WINDOWS\INF\oem44.inf

Files : 2 total

C:\WINDOWS\system32\DRIVERS\Netwbw02.sys

C:\WINDOWS\system32\DRIVERS\Netwfw02.dat

Type : Native Wi-Fi Driver

Radio types supported : 802.11b 802.11g 802.11n 802.11a 802.11ac

FIPS 140-2 mode supported : Yes

802.11w Management Frame Protection supported : Yes

Hosted network supported : Yes

Authentication and cipher supported in infrastructure mode:

Open None

Open WEP-40bit

Open WEP-104bit

Open WEP

WPA-Enterprise TKIP

WPA-Enterprise CCMP

WPA-Personal TKIP

WPA-Personal CCMP

WPA2-Enterprise TKIP

WPA2-Enterprise CCMP

WPA2-Personal TKIP

WPA2-Personal CCMP

Open Vendor defined

Vendor defined Vendor defined

Authentication and cipher supported in ad-hoc mode:

Open None

Open WEP-40bit

Open WEP-104bit

Open WEP

WPA2-Personal CCMP

Wireless Display Supported: Yes (Graphics Driver: Yes, Wi-Fi Driver: Yes)

C:\Users\Mau>netsh wlan start hostednetwork

The hosted network started.

C:\Users\Mau>

[YHatz]

Thanks, Maurigio! I was having the same problem with my Lenovo ThinkPad T450s which also had the Intel AC 7265 adapter. I essentially followed your suggestion to get the older 18.12.0 driver and hosted network now works!

My steps were as follows:

- went to Intel download site and downloaded Wireless_18.12.0_Dt64.exe (which is the driver only)

- used Windows Device Manager->Network adapters to uninstall the current Intel AC 7265 driver

- after reboot, the AC 7265 driver showed up again in Device Manager, so I looked at the Driver Details to see what files were still referenced. I manually backed up and then deleted the files listed under system32/drivers and also some c:/intel files that were listed.

- rebooted and then installed the Wireless_18.12.0_Dt64.exe driver that I had downloaded

- used command prompt to run 'netsh wlan show drivers' and it now showed that hosted network was supported!

- verified that I could successfully set up and start a hosted network

[MPrai]

I had the same problem with version 18.20

so I uninstalled it and installed version 18.12.0 which wierdly didn't work!!

then I uninstalled it again and installed the version 18.11 which unfortunately didn't work as well!!

I think after all intel has been right some how...

Driver : Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless-AC 7265

Vendor : Intel Corporation

Provider : Intel

Date : 6/22/2015

Version : 18.11.0.8

INF file : C:\Windows\INF\oem15.inf

Files : 2 total

C:\Windows\system32\DRIVERS\Netwtw02.sys

C:\Windows\system32\DRIVERS\Netwfw02.dat

Type : Native Wi-Fi Driver

Radio types supported : 802.11b 802.11g 802.11n 802.11a 802.11ac

FIPS 140-2 mode supported : Yes

802.11w Management Frame Protection supported : Yes

Hosted network supported : No

Authentication and cipher supported in infrastructure mode:

Open None

Open WEP-40bit

Open WEP-104bit

Open WEP

WPA-Enterprise TKIP

WPA-Enterprise CCMP

WPA-Personal TKIP

WPA-Personal CCMP

WPA2-Enterprise TKIP

WPA2-Enterprise CCMP

WPA2-Personal TKIP

WPA2-Personal CCMP

Open Vendor defined

Vendor defined Vendor defined

IHV service present : Yes

IHV adapter OUI : [00 80 86], type: [00]

IHV extensibility DLL path: C:\Windows\System32\IWMSSvc.dll

IHV UI extensibility ClSID: {1bf6cb2d-2ae0-4879-a7aa-a75834fbd0e3}

IHV diagnostics CLSID : {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}

Wireless Display Supported: Yes (Graphics Driver: Yes, Wi-Fi Driver: Yes)

[YHatz]

Michael313 : When you uninstalled, did you check and manually remove any left over files (just to be sure)? I'm not sure if that makes a difference, but I followed Maurigio's advice on that. See my earlier post. I uninstalled and rebooted but the driver still showed up for me, so I looked in the driver details to see what the driver files were and then manually deleted what I could and then rebooted again.

Then I installed the driver package 'Wireless_18.12.0_Dt64.exe'. Even though the driver package is 18.12, the version of the actual driver shows up as 18.11.0.8 dated 2015-06-22. The hosted network now works for me. I don't know if other hardware plays a role at all or if they have some weirdly different versions of the wireless adapter, but mine is inside a Lenovo T450s.

[MPrai]

It was kind of important to me, so I reseted my windows and then I just installed the old drivers and then launched the CMD and checked it again. but nothing changed. I actually did what you told too but it didn't help as well.

my laptop is some kind of asus k501u.

[YHatz]

If it's that important, you could try getting a USB wireless adapter. I see on amazon that there are some very small and cheap USB wireless adapters but you might have to do some research to be sure which ones support widows hosted network.

[SKuma79]

Hello all.....

I faced the same issue and fixed it....Here is the history...I use Lonovo E450 laptop running windows 10 64 bit having Intel® Dual Band Wireless-AC 7265 wireless card; I was using hotspot which was working fine with old driver. All of sudden it stopped working (I believe it stopped working after Windows regular update) and I do noticed

C:\Users\sureshcw>netsh wlan show driver

Hosted network supported : No <------</em>

Which was having latest driver..18.40.0.12 date 29-03-2016

I rolled back to old driver as below

Device manager > Select "Intel® Dual Band Wireless-AC 7265" > Update driver > Browse my computer for driver software > Let me pick from a device drivers on my computer > Where you will see list of all available old and new drivers Choose "18.20.0.9 [23-08-2015]"

That's all....

You will see

C:\Users\Sureshcw>netsh wlan show driver

Interface name: Wi-Fi

Driver : Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless-AC 7265

Vendor : Intel Corporation

Provider : Intel

Date : 23-08-2015

Version : 18.20.0.9

INF file : ????

Type : Native Wi-Fi Driver

Radio types supported : 802.11b 802.11g 802.11n 802.11a 802.11ac

FIPS 140-2 mode supported : Yes

802.11w Management Frame Protection supported : Yes

Hosted network supported : Yes

Enjoy!

Sureshcw

[zsvin]

Five years after the original post, I can confirm that the hotspot feature in Windows 10 works with no issues (it's two mouse click in the WiFi Settings). So Intel's response that AC-7265 hardware does not allow this to work is pure nonsense!