How to Set Up a Proxy Server on My Laptop on My Personal LAN

By James T Wood

An Ethernet connection gives your laptop the chance to be the star of the LAN.
i George Doyle/Stockbyte/Getty Images

Using Windows, you can share the Internet connection on your laptop with other computers on your local area network. This makes your laptop the proxy server for any other devices that might try to connect to the Internet on your personal LAN, but it doesn't offer any of the anonymity benefits of Web-based proxy servers. If you don't have a Wi-Fi router, however, you can use the Wi-Fi radio on your laptop to broadcast data to other devices on your LAN.

Step 1

Press the Windows Key, type "Network Connections" and click "View Network Connections." Windows opens a window showing all the network connections on your laptop.

Step 2

Right-click the icon for your laptop's wired network connection and select "Properties" from the list that displays. Click on the "Sharing" tab and check the box next to "Allow Other Network Users to Connect Through This Computer's Internet Connection." Remove the check in the box next to "Allow Other Network Users to Control or Disable the Shared Internet Connection." Click "OK." Note that if you have a Wireless card with virtual mini-ports, you will need to specify which Wireless connection to use from a drop-down menu below the first check box. Choose the second or third Wi-Fi connection.

Step 3

Right-click at the lower left hand corner of your screen and choose "Command Prompt (Admin)" from the list that pops up. This opens a command prompt with administrator privileges.

Step 4

Type the following to set up a Wi-Fi network:

netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid="MyProxyLaptop" key="MyProxyPassword"

Replace "MyProxyLaptop" with the name you want for the network. Keep the quotes in the command. Replace "MyProxyPassword" with your password, keeping the quotes in place. Press "Enter" when done.

Step 5

Type:

netsh wlan start hostednetwork

Press "Enter" after the command when you're ready to launch your laptop's Wi-Fi network.

×