Virtual WiFi hotspot with Windows 7

I had a problem with connecting multiple mobile devices to the wireless router as it had reached the maximum number of nodes. I was looking for a way to convert my laptop to a virtual WiFi hot spot and connect the mobile devices to the internet by sharing the LAN internet connection with the virtual WiFi adapter. 

A bit of Googling reviled a number of third party apps which can create a virtual WiFi. But with further reading, I learnt that this is a built in feature of Windows 7 operating system. A few configurations in the Windows "Network and Sharing Center" or a few commands on the Command Prompt do the trick.

The command prompt approach is noted here as it allows to turn on / off the virtual WiFi with a simple Windows batch file. It is important to note that the Command Prompt should have administrator privileges.

 
#Install virtual WiFi
#Replace "MyNet" with the name of the custom network and "MyPassword" with the preferred password.
netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid=MyNet key=MyPassword

#Turn on the virtual adapter.
netsh wlan start hostednetwork

#Turn off the virtual adapter.
netsh wlan stop hostednetwork

#Uninstall virtual wifi
netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=disallow

Virtual WiFi Adapter created in Windows Network and Sharing Center