Internet Connection Sharing Windows 7

Nowadays, sharing your desktop or laptop internet connection among others is a common practice. There are many third-party applications available, which can be used to share your internet connection with others. Microsoft Windows operating system has one built-in feature that can be used to share your internet connection among the full LAN network. This feature is called ICS (Internet Connection Sharing). 

To enable ICS on a system you must have two network adapters. One will be used to connect to the internet and the other one will be used to share your internet with LAN which will be directly connected with your local network device.

After enabling the ICS on a computer, this system will be performed as a DHCP server. The LAN adapter which is connected to the LAN switch will be the DHCP server interface. This interface will allocate the IP address to other LAN computers. Generally, the IP address range is 192.168.127.0/24.

If you want you can change this network. The other LAN computers should be set to "Automatic IP Address Configuration Mode".

Now we will be discussed how to enable ICS on a system.

First of all, we have to open the "Network & Internet Settings" (In Windows 10) or "Network & Sharing Center" (In Windows 7). We have multiple ways to open these settings. We can open it from the network icon or using the "Control Panel".

To open from the network icon just right click on it and click on the " Open Network & Sharing Center".

Now click on "Change adapter options".

For Windows 10

For Windows 7

Now you will be appeared by your available network interface card. We can access directly on this interface by using the command line. Please execute the below command in the "Run" program.

Right-click on your network adapter which is connected to the internet and go to "Properties". 

From there, go to the "Sharing" tab and click on "Allow other network users to connect through this computer's internet connection". And then select your network adapter from the dropdown list, which is connected to the LAN switch. This adapter will perform the routing function on behalf of LAN users. It takes all the internet requests from the users and will forward it to the network adapter which is connected to the internet.

In this example, we are using "Ethernet 2" as an adapter for connecting to the LAN, and our internet-connected network adapter is our Wifi network adapter. Means, we will share this wifi internet connection to our LAN users via the "Ethernet 2" network adapter. 

Finally, click on "OK" at the end of all configurations. Now you will be appeared by the below informational message. From there, we click on "Yes".

This message notified you that, your LAN adapter means "Ethernet 2" will be set by IP address 192.168.127.1 and this IP address will act as a gateway for your LAN users. And your LAN users IP address settings should be set by "Obtain an IP address automatically".

If the internet connection sharing process has completed successfully, then a "Shared" tag will be appeared on your internet-connected network adapter (in our case wifi adapter).

Now we will check our "Ethernet 2" network adapter whether it has changed the IP address to 192.168.137.1. 

Yes, we found that address has changed. One more thing is, here we have to set the DNS address.

And just for clarification, the IP address of our Wifi adapter which is connected to the internet is 10.16.16.11/24.

All work is done. From now on, all of our LAN users can connect to the internet using this network adapter. This 192.168.137.1 IP will be the gateway address for all LAN users. If you want you can change this network range as your preference.