It's been a long, long time since Microsoft Research first released its findings on
Virtual WiFi, or VWiFi, technology that would allow a single wireless network adapter to act like two, two, two NICs in one. Now that innovation is finally ready for the big show: inclusion in Windows 7 -- or at least some flavors of it. The tech lets one piece of WiFi hardware be represented in Windows as two separate adapters, meaning you can connect to two hotspots simultaneously if you like, or turn your virtual device into an access point that others can connect to. Apparently this functionality is indeed included in the latest
release candidate, but as there are no drivers currently supporting this feature it's not enabled. Expect the driver situation to change very soon, and expect hotel fee-based wireless internet access companies to start crying foul not long after.
posted May 18th 2009 8:08AM
O wow that is very cool. I could find my self using that. It would be very good in testing speed things up.
Speed? I am not really if the repeaters can have the same bandwidth as that of the primary WiFi user. Likely, the bandwidth will be smaller, thus the speed will decline.
he ment speeding up the setup of a mesh/repeater not speeding up the internet
Soooo, you couldnt use this to trunk 2 wireless connections together?
@nzo
AFAIK, you would only get more bandwidth by trunking, if the networks you connect to are on non-overlapping channels. I've seen a few tricks done with custom firmware on routers/APs, and the bandwidth you can get from using only one channel is limited.
I actually remember installing from the Microsoft Labs (or whatever they called it) waaaaay back in 2005. It was pretty unstable, and required a lot of tinkering just to get it to work. Then they announced they abandoned the project and I pretty much forgot about it.
Good to see they are still working on this.
So I can steal all of my neighbors WiFi connections and funnel them all into Azureus's obscure "Multiple interface routing" option:
http://kakku.wordpress.com/2007/11/03/combine-two-connections-for-a-single-torrent-download-routing-through-multiple-uplinks/
(scroll down a bit)
Maybe this would let me connect to VPN with one app while staying off the VPN in another app.
Just to get us off on the right foot... suck it, Apple!
Every time I see webspace being wasted to initiate another fanboy war, a little part of me dies.
Your HP must be over 1,000,000 because it happens a lot
Just to nip it in the bud, macs have had airport sharing for an effing long time. Ad-hoc, p2p, Ethernet/FireWire/wifi sharing... Yeah, real long time.
I have no interest in a fanboy war. How is this MS tech different?
Please stfu FF.
This tech creates two virtual adapters running on one real hardware adapter, in the same way that you can run two OSes through virtual machines today. I heard about it a few years ago and was pretty impressed then, and I'm still impressed by it. No OS has this, and Apple certainly hasn't hinted that they want to bring virtualisation to OSX.
That said, I've been using wireless networks for a while now, and I haven't needed to connect to two networks at once. It's a good start at using virtualisation to bring new features to consumers, but the possibilities go much further than this.
I don't know much about apple products, but it sounds to me like you are describing sharing a single wired connection with your Airport (correct me if I am wrong). This as you said, is nothing new. We are talking about allowing one wireless adapter to show up with multiple virtual interfaces, so that each virtual interface can be connected to a different network. Something that we have been able to do with Ethernet for quite some time, but not WiFi.
NoAndThen:
This is completely different.
Apple's sharing lets you share your non-WiFi connection over WiFi. So if you have ethernet, you can share your ethernet connection over WiFi. You could also share your WiFi connection over ethernet. I've even shared my Bluetooth connection over WiFi before. But you can only join one WiFi network at a time and you cannot create one WiFi network (acting as a base station) while you join another.
But this new MS sharing would let you join one WiFi network and then share it as another WiFi network. So for example, if you are in a hotel where you are allowed to join one device to a WiFi network, you can then turn around and reshare that as another base station for other device (or people) to join. Or you can join two WiFi networks at once.
MS system is more flexible than Apple's system you speak of. It maybe useful in some situations.
Spot the typical Apple fans who didn't read the article before proclaiming that OSX already has this tech. IT DOESN'T
This is NOT connection sharing (yes XP had that back in 2001) it is being able to connect to more than 1 network with 1 wifi card.
Could be great if you can combine internet speeds or send a packet to each one to double your bandwidth.
Nice to see a genuine bit of innovation here eh ?
it's analogous to Diamond's dual line modem suprasonic from back in the 98se days where you can use 2 modems to double the bandwidth. with this vwifi, any win 7 based wifi hardware can connect to more than 1 hotspot or network to double its bandwidth.
Probably speed up attacks against security protocols too.
Hmph....this is interesting...however im assuming you will see some kind of speed hit if you are acting as an access point and a client.
although, if there is already an access point near by i cant think of why I would want to create another separate wireless network.i guess its good to have the option.
Lets hope there arnt tons of stipulations to make this happen normally.
eerrr, because you might have an exclusive connection to a wireless AP and you might want to share the internet with other people you are working with who don't have access.
A great idea.
Wasn't this thing available in Linux for YEARS now? The madwifi drivers for the atheros, if I remember well, were doing this. The problem though is that it was getting slow as you added more adapters, but I don't think that Microsoft or anyone can fix that.
so then... here's and announcement about something that on one side is not that new and on the other it does work in practice yet... yeah... still not buying Vista or 7 or whatever...
if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it does it make a sound?
That's right, Vikingu. You can use wlanconfig to create multiple `virtual' NICs... ath0, ath1, ath2... I commonly do this so as to have one virtual card in normal Managed mode (so I'm connected to my router like normal) but also have another virtual card in Monitor mode at the same time. But yes you can put the virtual cards in whatever mode you like and connect to whatever you please. I've never really found a use for it so don't bother (at the end of the day you have to pick one gateway to take your outside network (i.e. internet) traffic through).
Yes it does take a bit of a speed hit.
Shame you got low-ranked, what you wrote is quite correct.
I didn't read the article so Microsoft's implementation may differ somewhat from what Atheros/madwifi has had under Linux for the past few years, but it sounds broadly similar.
Yes. Although to be fair to Microsoft, virtual WiFi was invented by their research group, years before it was implemented in Linux.
I would think if you connect to 2 non-overlapping channel APs, there may be some speed increase, assuming they both have the same signal strength and capabilities.
If they're on the same channel, it would act a little more like a switched VLAN. No increase in throughput, but ability to bridge two networks at layer 2 could be worth the trade off.
Of course, now hardware manufacturers have yet another excuse to not build native Linux drivers!
Oh my - as simple and swift as it is now for the average user to create/maintain a wireless network, this should be a walk in the park. Especially considering Microsoft's history of customer-friendly and well thought out implementations.
if we were still talking about vista and it's insane networking then i'd agree with the sarcasm, but considering how simple they made wireless and networking in windows 7 it's kinda moot
LOL dude the linux equivilent is a pain in the ass, this works as it worked flawlessly since it was in MSR, and the fact that their limiting it to 1 virtual adapter per wifi card means that the speed issue shouldnt be a problem and should be very practical, and not just atheros either as to be a win7 driver you need to have this ability in your driver as well.
Many cards have this capability in linux, intel cards for example. I find it utterly amusing that you think limits is a good thing.
It's not Windows 7... it's Vista 1.5 :D
It's not Ranger Rick...It's Wanker Dick
As is OS 10.1...10.2...10.3...10.4...10.5...10.6. Menial upgrades to the core OS. The difference being it didn't take MS 8 year to decide to go back and clean up the **** that is under the hood of Vista which is EXACTLY was 10.6 is.
FINALLY I can play my Nintendo DS online without screwing the rest of my network by turning off WPA.
Agreed! Cool!
That's exactly what I was thinking. Hooray!
This is probably the best use suggested in the thread so far. Not so much the DS part, but the fact it can be useful for devices that have poor WPA implementations - they can just piggy back off the adapter. Sure it's a security risk, but if it could be restricted to a single MAC address it would be quite useful (again, MAC addresses can be cloned/spoofed but it's still handy).
Isn't this already offered by Intel MyWifi technology? My Lenovo T400 has the ability to create another wireless network and bridge the two.
Heres an overview: http://www.cnet.com.au/intel-s-my-wi-fi-makes-my-internet-yours-339294335.htm I don't see any jazz in what Microsoft is doing here. Anyone care to explain?
So I already have this? Cool, all I need now is a driver and a situation in which there are two wireless networks available or in which it would be useful for people to access wireless via my laptop rather than from the wireless network I'm connected to.
I think getting drivers is far more likely than ever having an opportunity to use it. But obviously there are people who will be very glad to have this technology, or Microsoft wouldn't have included it. (Now all I need is something to prevent the wireless network I was using earlier today from going up and down like... a really wavy thing. I actually had to plug a network cable into my laptop for the first time in many many months.)
Oh, and clever title.
I'M NOT AN APPLE-FANBOY!!!
Wasn't Apple already doing that for years? At the time I had my iBook G4 and even before I was able to share my internet connection wirelessly. My friend's Ethernet port wasn't working, so I have my iBook connected and shared the Internet over AirPort...
Hum, thinking about it, it was Ethernet-to-Wireless sharing... but I THINK it was working for Wireless-to-Wireless also, isn't it?
no, just etherenet-to wifi or wife-to-ethernet.
My bad, thanks for correcting!
i remember using it to share a wifi connection i was connected to through my wifi before so i don't think its only ethernet to wifi
Slow or Fast and who cares if Linux and Apple had it before, it wasn't available to the common users, which I last remember is "windows users." If you want speed and high performance get something that is designed for that. Windows 7 is great, it has a little of everything and I’m glad that Microsoft is catching up with the times and making it really easy for the end user. Seriously, I don't complain that paint doesn't have drop shadows at a click of button (I can thank adobe photoshop for that one). I'm glad Windows is stepping up to Apple which IMO have been making things seamless for users for years. These software giants learn (steal, whatever you wanna call it) from each other which is why we have better and better technology every min.
Another thing Mac's can't do.... HAHahahaha
Windows 7 FTW!!!!
Actually Windows 7 can't do this either. Did you read the article, you little Bill Gates wannabe?
@Franfurter
" Apparently this functionality is indeed included in the latest release candidate, but as there are no drivers currently supporting this feature it's not enabled. Expect the driver situation to change very soon"
-Quote from the article
Did you read the article, you little Steve Jobs' cock sucker???
bwahahahahaha
Is that a red squiggly "misspelled" line underneath NWifi and VWifi in the picture???
And under Netsh too.
So apparently no one noticed that whoever made this lovely graphic left the words NWifi, VWifi, and Netsh defined as misspelled words. I think that is hilarious.
So we're never going to be able to run Netstumbler on a Windows PC again are we? That's one reason I DO actually miss XP.