Change the channel of a wireless windows 8 hosted network

Question

I've created a hosted wlan network under windows 8 using

netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid=”MySSID” key=”password”

and

netsh wlan show hostednetwork

So far so good, but the channel number is set automatic by netsh. Is there a possibility to change the number manually?

Answer 1

netsh does not support this special configuration. You have to configure channel settings directly on the hardware yourself. In my special case it was possible to set the channel in the device properties of windows. With some older hardware you have to configure the AP through a vendor configuration tool or by modifying the firmware itself in extreme circumstances.

Answer 2

Apparently this is a hardware specific option. For example, on the very common external USB WiFi stick, the Atheros based TP-LINK TL-WN722N (and several others), the channel option is not available on the Advanced properties tab from the Device Manager. Instead, you need to hack the driver INF file for your specific card. To find the driver you use, open an administrative command shell and type:

netsh wlan show all

and then look for the INF file path:

Wireless System Information Summary
(Time: 2015-08-25 11:38:33 FLE Summer Time)

=======================================================================
============================== SHOW DRIVERS ===========================
=======================================================================


Interface name: WiFi 2

    Driver                    : TP-LINK Wireless USB Adapter
    Vendor                    : TP-LINK
    Provider                  : TP-LINK
    Date                      : 2013-11-19
    Version                   : 10.0.0.28
    INF file                  : C:\Windows\INF\oem20.inf
    Files                     : 1 total
                                C:\Windows\system32\DRIVERS\athuwbx.sys
    Type                      : Native Wi-Fi Driver

Now make a copy of that file and open it in a descent text editor. Look for the [adhocchannelselect.reg] entries. In particular search for the defaultIbssChannel key. In my case it look like this:

HKR, Ndi\params\defaultIbssChannel, ParamDesc,  0,  %adhocchannel%
HKR, Ndi\params\defaultIbssChannel, default,    0,  "8"
HKR, Ndi\params\defaultIbssChannel, min,        0,  "1"
HKR, Ndi\params\defaultIbssChannel, max,        0,  "11"
HKR, Ndi\params\defaultIbssChannel, step,       0,  "1"
HKR, Ndi\params\defaultIbssChannel, base,       0,  "10"
HKR, Ndi\params\defaultIbssChannel, type,       0,  "int"

Here the default channel is shown to be 8. These are the registry values that should determine the default channel used. However, they are in the wrong section to be visible in the Advanced tab (Device Manager), so you need to copy it to the [atheros.reg] section and edit the channel you want there. (Don't forget to comment out the old section.)

After you're done, uninstall the previous driver (and unplug the device) and re-install your hacked version. Your mileage may vary.

Alternatively you can try to manually edit the registry. BE VERY CAREFUL! (First backup your registry before attempting any changes.) As an example for registry script to import:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4d36e972-...-08002be10318}\0021]
"defaultIbssChannel"="8"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4d36e972-...-08002be10318}\0021\Ndi\params\defaultIbssChannel]
"ParamDesc"="Default Soft AP Channel"
"default"="8"
"min"="1"
"max"="11"
"step"="1"
"base"="10"
"type"="int"

Here you have to edit the \{4d36e972-...-08002be10318}\0021 part of the path, to match your own.