Win10: How to enable WiFi Direct and set the password?

Question

Background: (please correct me if I my understanding is wrong)

Wifi Direct is a new standard that enables two computer to talk directly to each user using Wifi. It differs from an ad-hoc Wifi network in the sense that it is a true direct network (not one deviec the master and the other the client). In addition to defining how to use the Wifi network, it also defines a set of protocol on top of the pure conenctivity layer, eg. how to find a service.

Wifi Direct on Win10: Connect app / Project to this PC

Microsoft has create the app "Connect" which is used to create a Wifi Direct network. When starting the app, a new wireless network apeares called "DIRECT-cE name-of-PC mslZ". This is the Wifi direct network.

My question:

I like to connect an iphone to that Wifi Direct network. The iphone is seeing the Wifi Direct network and displays it in its list of Wifi networks. When connecting to it, the iPhone asks for the password.

Here is the problem: how can I set this password or where do I find the password in Win10?

Already tried

The WiFi direct network appears as a network adapter. You can check properties on that adapter. I did not find a way to set a password in the many options accessible there.

The connect app seems not to have any menu or configuration option.

The "Project to this PC" seems to have a PIN option, but when enabling this, no field to enter the PIN can be found. I assume this is the normal "lockin" PIN. Unfortunatly PINs are disabled on our company laptops, so I cannot try this.

Any idea?

Thanks

Answer 1

Your understanding is basically correct, but the Windows implementation is lacking.

A Wi-Fi Direct connection would not need to create an access point and would not need to define a pre-shared key. As you correctly mention the PIN option is one method for Wi-Fi Direct to be set up. Settings up a network with a pre-shared key is considered a fallback/legacy solution which is what you're seeing here (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/uwp/api/windows.devices.wifidirect.wifidirectlegacysettings)

The Windows Wi-Fi Direct implementation is however (in my experience) not compatible with *nix devices. I have successfully set up a Wi-Fi Direct connection between two Linux devices, but have not been able to set up a connection between a linux device and a windows device. Being unable to do this leads me to believe that it would be similarly hard to set it up with an iPhone, as IOS uses its own implementation which also does not play nice with Windows or Linux (see https://stackoverflow.com/questions/28448274/wi-fi-direct-and-ios-support).

What you can do instead

IF the driver supports it you can open a command prompt cmd with admin rights to set up an ad-hoc wireless network using the netsh command.

Set up the desired network ssid using netsh wlan set hostednetwork ssid="<SSID>" key="<passphrase>". You can use netsh wlan set hostednetwork to get some more information.

Use the netsh wlan start hostednetwork command to start the network with the settings you defined.

Answer 2

You shouldn't try connecting that wifi instead you should go to Wi-Fi Direct option on your mobile phone and there you will find your Laptop/PC listed there. But it works with Android devices that are compatible.